I'm wondering if anyone can identify the font in the below photo for a friend. It is on a carburettor part from a 1910 motorcycle which he wants to make a replica of ( the part not the whole bike!)

There are a few modern fonts that are simlar-ish such as Shelley AllegroBT but not real close for the type of nitpicking that vintage motorcycle guys like to engage in (they are every bit as pedantic as typographers to be sure). So it would have been a font that was used back in 1910, presumeably if it was not a "special" made up by the company's graphic designers which seems unlikely but not impossible.

Anyone got any ideas what vintage font it might be? The part was made in England BTW.

Thanks for any help that you may have to offer.

30 minutes ago, Hopper said:

if it was not a "special" made up by the company's graphic designers

Most probably it wasn’t a font at all, but custom lettering (and even if it was inspired by a typeface, it doesn’t mean it was ever digitised).

The best chance to reproduce it would be to recreate the artwork in a vector program, either starting from the photo, or modifying an existing typeface like Shelley Script.

Riccardo is right; this is engraved, likely modeled on an existing script but not something that can be matched with type, particularly the fact that it is a connecting script on a circle.

Thanks guys. I thought it would be a long shot but worth a try. He has found someone who can scan it in and set up a vector path to CNC engrave it so will have the problem solved one way or another. As you say, the original script probably is not available today as digital so not much use anyways. I suppose the original would have been made using a pantograph engraver from a larger custom template of some sort.