Historical examples of serpentine-shaped /one

Craig Eliason
Craig Eliason Posts: 1,497
in Type History
In embroidered samplers I've been studying, it was very common to make the figure /one with a "stroke" that curves a bit to the left at the bottom and to the right at the top (like a very compressed /S or an upright /integral). 
In manuscripts and inscriptions I think I've seen /ones that look like /Js (that is, with a curve at the bottom), but I can't recall if I've seen this serpentine /one elsewhere. 
Anyone know of examples ∫ -like /ones in lettering or type?

Comments

  • Kent Lew
    Kent Lew Posts: 1,034
    That sounds very unusual. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such a form, anywhere. Do you have any examples you can share? Now I’m really curious.
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,497

  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,344
    edited April 13
    I experimented with some of my typefaces, in InDesign, finagling the integral symbol.
    These were the most successful.
    From top to bottom: Beaufort, Brown, Sense.
    Despite being able to achieve even colour, the disparity in style is too great, the s-shaped “one” doesn’t look like a one.
    I did try my more unorthodox designs, such as Fontesque, on the principle that their general weirdness would make the odd “one” more at home, but in those I had either omitted the integral or designed it to be quite conventional, with tiny ball terminals, so that didn’t work.
  • Kent Lew
    Kent Lew Posts: 1,034
    Thanks, Craig. Those are very unorthodox-looking, to say the least. I’m not sure how well they’d read outside of a sampler context. Although, I suppose in the context of a date, it would certainly be assumable. But still weird. :-∫
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,497
    I'm tempted to see it as a kind of disambiguation strategy (as sampler lowercase /l's were often sans serif and capital /I's had bilateral serifs). But in the content of samplers and other likely cross-stitch products, there was probably zero danger of mistaking figures for letters.
  • Florian Hardwig
    Florian Hardwig Posts: 290
    The closest example in my collection is this hand-painted house number spotted in Amsterdam.


  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,497
    Thanks Florian. That's in the neighborhood of the J-like figures on this Venetian clock, pictured at the Wikipedia page for "1". 
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,130
    I can’t NOT read that as a J.
    It’s J2-o’clock!
  • Erik
    Erik Posts: 11
    Thomas Phinney said:
    I can’t NOT read that as a J.
    It’s J2-o’clock!
    “When does Good Times come on?”  “JJ oʼclock.”  “DYN‐Oʼ‐(clock)‐MITE!!”

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