Element Ball: Letter Gothic

My Grandma Betty worked as a secretary for the anesthesia department at a hospital. And on occasion, if I was a good boy, she would take me with her to work and she would show off her fancy typewriters – which at the time were IBM Selectrics.

I’m a little kid and I’m fascinated by these typewriters. Especially the fact that instead of typewriter keys hitting the paper, each of the typewriters had a little metal golf ball with raised letters inside. And if you hit the key on the keyboard, the ball would spin and strike against the paper in a perfectly struck motion.

I found out later in life that those little balls were called “element balls,” and IBM made a series of them in different fonts and spacings. You could get your element balls in 10 point or 12 point (there may have been a 15 point one, I don’t know), in fonts of Pica or Gothic or Script.

Later in life, I acquired a couple of element balls. They reminded me of those wonderful times with Grandma Betty, and any good memories of my time with her are treasured.

That is an IBM element ball. In the font of “Letter Gothic.”

Now I could enter that picture in and of itself … but I’m not sure any gallery or show would appreciate my puffy fingers in the photo.

So let’s put the element ball on a table, and break out my Nikon Df camera and attach the high-powered medical Nikkor 120mm 1:4 lens. The Medical Nikkor lens was originally crafted so that a nurse could photograph an open wound or surgical procedure without being in the doctor’s way.

I’ve used the medical Nikkor lens for macro photography, capturing some amazing images with it. So let’s break it out again.

I took 60 different photos of the element ball, then combined them into a focus stack to bring out as much detail as possible.

And in the end … here’s what came out.

Now THAT is some serious detail.

Almost makes me want to hunt down an IBM Selectric and type some letters.