Where to find/create Monophoto Palatino font used in Fighting Fantasy (Puffin) #44

[Member Sou…]

I would like to know where I can find the nearest approximation to the font used in the Fighting Fantasy book "Legend of the Shadow Warriors", published by Puffin in 1991, and used in many of their subsequent books.

The font is given in the inside front cover as "Monophoto Palatino".  Apparently there is no digital version of this (according to this page I found discussing it: https://fontsinuse.com/uses/35023/germany-and-the-germans-by-john-ardagh).  A contributor on that page did mention they had 'made' a similar font themselves from other fonts they found (like 'Palmer') but I can't see any way to contact them to ask them for it.

The font itself is very similar to Palatino Linotype, but the 'long' letters are longer while the 'small' letters are smaller.  See my screenshots for comparison where I've overlaid Palatino Linotype with the text on the page.

I'd be very grateful of anyone can point me to where/how I can obtain a digital font that is the same (or close enough to the same that any differences are not really noticeable).

[Member Sou…]

Further to the above, I've found a similar font: Palatino BQ Roman.  MOST of the glyphs seem to be the same, except the letters vwxyz , all of which look very different and almost like they are from a different font entirely.  Note that the only place I could find mention of this font was on fontke, which I don't think is a legitimate source, so the font file its based on might very well be corrupt/wonky in some way.

If anyone knows a better alternative, I'm still very interested to know what it might be.

[Ralf Herrmann]

I’m afraid you found all the available information already. Not every letterpress font was turned into a phototypesetting font and not every phototypesetting font was turned into a digital font or remained available as such. That’s just the way it is. I would usually check Fonts in Use for information about versions, but you have already done that. 

BQ fonts are or were Berthold fonts, but the foundry went bankrupt and the fonts floating around on the internet are outdated and don’t have a proper license. Some of their fonts were continued by an US successor, but it is defunct now as well and the rights went to Monotype. But Palatino is not among those fonts.