Magna Carta

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William
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Magna Carta

Post by William »

I saw a short television news item yesterday that a copy of Magna Carta, said to be the only one in private ownership, is to be sold at auction. They mentioned 1297 which was new to me as I know that the original dates from 1215 when King John was King of England. I knew that his son King Henry III had reaffirmed Magna Carta, but he reigned until 1272. In 1297 King Edward I, son of King Henry III was King of England.

A quick picture was shown. Medieval hand written and there seemed to be some red capitals amongst the black lettering, yet it was only a quick showing and then it was gone! "Font" I thought!

So now I am hoping to find a picture from which a test font can be produced.

I have started by searching at http://www.yahoo.com using the following keywords.

Magna Carta auction

A number of links came up in the search.

So, the search is on for an image!

William Overington

28 September 2007
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Dick Pape
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Magna Carta Font

Post by Dick Pape »

Somebody already beat you to it William -- IN FACT using Font Creator !!
Image
Here's a copy ....

http://rapidshare.com/files/58974241/Magna_Carta.ttf

Dick
William
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Post by William »

Thank you to both of you for your postings.

The best image of the version in the auction that I have found so far is at the following web page, by clicking on the multimedia image which is on the left some way down the page.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/nyregion/25magna.html

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007 ... APHIC.html

I did a screen print and produced a bmp and then imported the image into FontCreator. The E came out quite well, but the rest seems too small to work well.

I have found a webspace for the National Archives (of the United States of America).

http://www.archives.gov/

I have not been able to locate any image of the Magna Carta there.

I have found the following webspace.

http://www.sothebys.com/

At that page is the following pdf.

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ ... 133469.pdf

William Overington

29 September 2007
Dick Pape
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The British Museum

Post by Dick Pape »

It looked like Bhikkhu Pesala's
Try the British Library
would give you very fine detail (on their version) - enough in fact to get to the individual letter. Very nice zoom feature.

I was surprised to read that For Sale version had been owned by Ross Perot, ex-American presidential candidate and in fact local Texas-boy... would be curious why they thought now was the time to sell... housing market can't be that bad.

DP
William
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Post by William »

The following reports what happened at the auction.

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ ... 152137.pdf

William Overington

22 December 2007
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