Pyrex catalog from from 1938 with hand-drawn lab glassware [pdf]
36 comments
·October 27, 2025coreyp_1
I love the hand-drawn illustrations, but I really love the typography.
Does anyone know which fonts (or, probably more importantly, which modern-day equivalents) are used to get this feeling?
graypegg
For the body copy, I think it's a version of Rockwell. [0] It fits the time, as well as the lower case "g" always looks quirky to me in rockwell-flavours. Stubby tail + serif on top. The heft on the headings also matches Rockwell Extra Bold with a couple tiny variations. Plus, just simply... slab serifs.
Things working against that are:
- % is wrong. That really looks like a different typeface all together. Not unheard of, might be worth seeing if it matches any other monotype fonts.
- Bolded headings have some differences. Rockwell Extra Bold should still have circular tittles, but unless it's a scanning artifact, the few lowercase "i" examples I can find in those headings seem to be square.
- The Rockwell favour in the tables is tweaked, with no descenders and uses tabular digits. This is pretty common, but the digital copies of Rockwell I have laying around don't have those exact forms... doesn't really say much when we're talking about what specific hot-metal type casts did monotype sell them 90-odd years ago.
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On the title pages (like page 13), my best guess is Memphis. [1] The R is wrong for Rockwell, but also the lower a in "Brand" is totally wrong for Memphis, and the quote is totally different. Going to take lunch, and possibly come back to this in a bit because now I'm intrigued haha.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_(typeface) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_(typeface)
graypegg
Comment got deleted, but Gallatin isn't the title page font. That was a digital font released in 2019, which is meant to look like Memphis with a two storey a. https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/128627/gallatin
That does mention that Linotype had a Memphis flavour with a two-storey "a" though... so maaaaaybe it is Memphis!
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landl0rd
It's not precisely the same but you may enjoy Berkeley Mono: https://neil.computer/notes/introducing-berkeley-mono/
I enjoy using it for reading and writing code.
supernova87a
It is mind blowing to see the prices of the complex spiral distillation condensers at $5-10 each.
Today these are like $300 at least, and I'm guessing they cannot be made in the USA. (I would be glad to be wrong)
edit: ok with inflation from 1938 it's not so incomparable. But still.
brulard
In 2025 dollars that is around $230.
jihadjihad
As a consumer, it is important to note that `pyrex` and `PYREX` are not the same thing [0]:
"Corning used borosilicate to produce all Pyrex products. However, the company that purchased the cookware products switched to soda-lime glass, adopting the name pyrex (spelled with all lowercase letters).
Corning continued to make its lab tools with borosilicate, dubbing these products to be PYREX (spelled with all uppercase letters)."
All of the glass examples in TFA are borosilicate all-caps PYREX, while most of what you can buy today in the store is lowercase pyrex (Europe is an exception where the all-caps variety can be found).
0: https://www.corning.com/worldwide/en/products/life-sciences/...
Normal_gaussian
Its worth noting that in Europe borosilicate PYREX cookware continues to be made and sold.
- https://pyrex.co.uk/pages/a-unique-glass
It is a source of some annoyance that lowercase pyrex infects the market via imports.
electroly
OXO sells borosilicate glass bakeware if you're looking for an alternative in America. The original PYREX is available for Europeans.
wyclif
Where can you buy uppercase PYREX today in America?
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lm28469
Actually as a "consumer" you shouldn't know the difference, you'll be a better "consumer" that way.
As an informed human being who happens to buy things from time to time you should definitely know the difference though.
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leoh
[flagged]
wlesieutre
Old tool catalogs have similarly great illustrations
https://archive.org/details/stanley-catalogue-34-1929/page/6...
MerrimanInd
My roommate in college worked at GE's Global Research lab in Schenectady. As a bit of a relic from the heyday of US corporate research they still had an in-house glassblowing department for producing all the necessary glassware for all the labs and chemical/material research!
mattkrause
This is surprisingly common at big research universities! My classmate even managed to take a course on glassblowing--and have it count for her PhD!
bayindirh
Beautiful.
I believe it's interesting that these kinds of intricate, hand made objects float to the front page of the HN while at the same time many people glorify how AI can handle these jobs and can do an "arguably better job" in less time.
It's evident that these hand-drawn diagrams or any artifact with high levels of human effort (for lack of a better term) contains something we lost in today's world.
Maybe we should reflect upon that, a bit.
srmatto
I had the same thought but I also wonder if these highly trained illustrators were happy with making corporate renderings or if they had imagined themselves working in a more creative capacity?
I also don't think its gone. We still have great illustrators but someone somewhere has to decide to use illustrations instead of a photo, CGI, or something else and then they have to pay the premium for that service.
91bananas
I definitely get this often vibe that: somewhat comparable things that take a lot more time often end up a lot better than things that take less time. It's like that commitment you make when you're doing something like this, the amount of effort, care and focus that must be exhibited to finish something like this document.
We should definitely reflect on that a lot.
cnity
Totally agreed. And as the sibling comment points out, it started before AI slop became a thing. I think it's because technological progress in typesetting means you don't have to "care" as much (it is automatic). Of course as a result, this means modern typesetting is "careless".
Extend this metaphor however you please.
tokai
The quality of layouting and print publications dropped off long long before AI slop became a thing. Already in the 80s it was mostly lost.
amonroe805-2
My heuristic is that quality is largely a function of human attention during creation. The transition to digital layouting etc meant less human attention could be spent on it while still achieving “acceptable” results, and so market dynamics ensured that less attention was spent on those tasks, lowering quality.
Whether or not you personally would make this cost/quality tradeoff comes down to the individual, but to me it is also quite clear that something was lost in the transition.
data-ottawa
I think another thing is a lot of modern stuff is under thought, either in trying to be overly broad or just misunderstanding the user.
Google Shopping is an example. It has enforced opinions about what a product looks like, so you have to force a square peg through a round hole.
They’ve got a lot of stuff about pricing and loyalty and quantities, but if you dig into tons of categories they have almost nothing that represents the real categories sellers and buyers care about.
Look at the collectibles category. If you sell Pokémon cards and collectibles there is zero merchandising info that actually matches your products or how they’re sold.
That means your analytics, automatic listings, ads, etc. are too generic for your customers. All your automated stuff is going to come through wrong.
Meanwhile niche and deep sellers who avoid that forced genericisation, like McMaster-Carr[1] can have these incredibly valuable, useful, and compelling catalogs.
I’d say that deep user knowledge is why Aperture had such a strong fan base too.
I struggle with this buying from Lee Valley. Their caralogs are fantastic, but I have trouble finding things on their website.
This turned into a rant, but maybe a TL;DR is a lot of modern software has no skin in the game of specialization, and so they inadvertently limit these experiences.
[1] mcmaster.com
pugworthy
I recall seeing similar glassware illustrations in catalogs from the 70's?
b33j0r
Can anyone explain the concept of “oddly satisfying” in this context? These drawings are like… cozy or something. Is it nostalgia that I’m feeling?
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layer8
I don’t think it’s nostalgia, skillful hand drawings are just nice.
tokai
1120 looks suspiciously like a beer glass.
cnity
At 250ml it's not far off a half pint.
reaperducer
Most of the people in my college dorm drank beer from various sizes and shapes of pilfered labware.
To me, they all look like valid beer vessels.
yapyap
What a treat to see hand drawn stuff in the days of AI slop.
You don’t know what you have untill you lose it.
I almost didn't click through to the catalog, but boy am I glad I did! Some of those drawings are so aesthetically pleasing.