⏳ PRINTED ON DEMAND — Please allow 2–3 weeks for delivery

This book is printed one copy at a time when you order it. There is no warehouse shelf of these — your copy goes on the press after you check out. Please allow 2–3 weeks from order to delivery.

About this book

Sidney Hackes's Davids' Practical Letterer (1903) is one of the true classics of the American sign trade — the alphabet book generations of letterers kept at the bench. Published under the Davids' name of the sign painters' supply house, it is a working collection of the alphabets, numerals, monograms, and borders a jobbing letterer reached for daily.

The strength of the book is its practicality: display alphabets in the standard trade styles — Roman, block, Egyptian, script, and the fancy novelty letters that sold the job — drawn clearly for copying, with numerals to match and the border and panel treatments that frame a sign. It is an idea file and a pattern book in one: open it to any page and there is a letter worth painting.

For the modern sign painter the Practical Letterer is still what it was in 1903 — the fastest way to put an authentic period alphabet on a panel. Copy the letters, adapt the borders, and the work carries the unmistakable character of the golden age of American sign writing.

For working and beginning sign painters, pinstripers, show-card writers, lettering artists, and collectors of trade classics. The bench book of the 1903 sign trade — as useful now as it was then.

Details: 6×9" paperback, black and white interior, cream paper.

⚠️ Please read before ordering — about print quality

This is a print-on-demand reprint of a scanned historical document. The pages were scanned from an original 1903 printing, and the print quality of your book reflects the condition of that original scan.

What that means in plain terms: you may see faded text, uneven inking, age spots, show-through from the back of pages, and other imperfections that were in the 1903 original or introduced by the scanning process. These are preserved as-is — they are not printing defects, and they are not something we can fix.

We are not responsible for the condition of the original source material. If you want a pristine modern typeset book, this isn't it. If you want the actual 1903 book with all its character intact, you're in the right place.

Printed on demand by IngramSpark. One copy at a time — no inventory, no waste.