Hello, I'm looking for the font used in the Watch that I've included below.
![nzg9cl.jpg]()
Can you please help me?
Can you please help me?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Font Identification
- Thread starter bijutoha
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It is difficult to identify this properly without some uppercase and lowercase characters. In general, this is a digitized version of quill pen based handwriting of the English Edwardian era, of which there are several styles. These numbers sit somewhere between Roundhand, Engraver's Script and Engrosser’s Script. Note that those are not font names, but are names of specific styles of calligraphic style, of which there are many digital font variations.
Have you tried services like https://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/Hello, I'm looking for the font used in the Watch that I've included below.
![nzg9cl.jpg]()
Can you please help me?
Did you not have any success? I tried with a cropped image of the numerals and the website identified it as "Bellwe Light"
https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/itc/belwe/light/glyphs.html
-Ron.
What makes you think there is any font (typeface) here to identify?
You uploaded a picture of an antique American watch (from the Elgin National Watch Company of Elgin, Illinois), probably from the last 19th or early 20th century. Or maybe just a contemporary reproduction or faux illustration after an antique watch. You didn't say.
Assuming it is a picture of an actual watch, there's no good reason to believe that they used any commercial typeface. It's likely it was just some lettering that was created by their designer that management agreed looked pleasing and fit the designer's marching orders.
It's not like it's a magazine or a book!
Others have suggested typefaces that look similar.
Edit: look carefully at the lettering. Do you see the subtle differences between side-by-side numerals. Look particularly at "55". It was almost certainly hand-lettered. I'm unfamiliar with how watch faces were made at the time, so cannot say if it was hand-lettered on each individual face, or just to make some master artwork that was then silk-screened or applied using some sort of printing technology. (But guessing not individually hand-lettered.)
You will have to raise someone from the grave to reproduce this typeface!
It might help if you say why it matters. Are you trying to reproduce this in an illustration? Are you writing a description of the face, and want to name the typeface? Some other reason?
You uploaded a picture of an antique American watch (from the Elgin National Watch Company of Elgin, Illinois), probably from the last 19th or early 20th century. Or maybe just a contemporary reproduction or faux illustration after an antique watch. You didn't say.
Assuming it is a picture of an actual watch, there's no good reason to believe that they used any commercial typeface. It's likely it was just some lettering that was created by their designer that management agreed looked pleasing and fit the designer's marching orders.
It's not like it's a magazine or a book!
Others have suggested typefaces that look similar.
Edit: look carefully at the lettering. Do you see the subtle differences between side-by-side numerals. Look particularly at "55". It was almost certainly hand-lettered. I'm unfamiliar with how watch faces were made at the time, so cannot say if it was hand-lettered on each individual face, or just to make some master artwork that was then silk-screened or applied using some sort of printing technology. (But guessing not individually hand-lettered.)
You will have to raise someone from the grave to reproduce this typeface!
It might help if you say why it matters. Are you trying to reproduce this in an illustration? Are you writing a description of the face, and want to name the typeface? Some other reason?
Last edited:
Some excellent advice in this thread: In addition, I'd suggest that the OP ask @bunnspecial who is an enthusiast about - as well as something of an expert on - early American watches such as Elgin. He might be able to point you in the right direction towards seeking an answer.
At this point in production, watch dials were typically hand drawn. For dial produced in volume(this is not an overly uncommon dial) I believe the usual practice was to screen print the dial for production based on the initial drawing.
With that said, quite a few dials-especially high grade ones-were hand painted up through ~1900ish. I suspect the artists would have worked from a basic stencil or outline as the starting point but ultimately would end up with a somewhat unique dial. There is one particular Waltham dial I watch for of a particular general style, but every one I own or examine shows very slight differences.
There are particular numeral styles which have specific names in the context of horology. This is is not one of those, although it's somewhat reminiscent of Breguet style numerals. It has what a collector would call an "old English" type signature.
Of course, it's worth mentioning that all dial decoration was applied before the final glaze layer on the dial so that it is effectively baked into place.
With that said, quite a few dials-especially high grade ones-were hand painted up through ~1900ish. I suspect the artists would have worked from a basic stencil or outline as the starting point but ultimately would end up with a somewhat unique dial. There is one particular Waltham dial I watch for of a particular general style, but every one I own or examine shows very slight differences.
There are particular numeral styles which have specific names in the context of horology. This is is not one of those, although it's somewhat reminiscent of Breguet style numerals. It has what a collector would call an "old English" type signature.
Of course, it's worth mentioning that all dial decoration was applied before the final glaze layer on the dial so that it is effectively baked into place.
Any calligrapher who works with a pointed pen should be able to do Copperplate and Spencerian scripts. These are common, foundational lettering styles.
It's not that one, though. The 3 is pretty similar, but the 2 is very different. Most of the numeral have similarities, but have significant differences.
Glad to get your response here leekil! Unfortunately, It doesn't look like what was demanded. I think this is an Illustration only for this antique watch. I agree with jtara and bunnspecial.
![]()
Idea: scan the image. (Well, duh, it's already scanned!) Use Illustrator to trace the numerals, and clean it up. If you really need a font, there are tools that will make a font from a set of vector images. Presume you are interested in only the numerals?
Now, it's not quite that simplistic, as fonts generally have rules that actually modify details depending on the rendered size, for kerning when one particular character is placed next to another particular character, etc. etc. etc. But might do for your purpose without a lot of tweaking.
To help you search for a tool (there are many!), here's a hint: these tools are often used to create "icon fonts" from a set of icons. So throw in "icon" as a keyword...
I've done this (for icons) but frankly it was quite some time ago and forget the name of the tool I used.
Now, it's not quite that simplistic, as fonts generally have rules that actually modify details depending on the rendered size, for kerning when one particular character is placed next to another particular character, etc. etc. etc. But might do for your purpose without a lot of tweaking.
To help you search for a tool (there are many!), here's a hint: these tools are often used to create "icon fonts" from a set of icons. So throw in "icon" as a keyword...
I've done this (for icons) but frankly it was quite some time ago and forget the name of the tool I used.