Ampersand - "& Co." - Script

"For about the last 11 centuries "et cetera" was commonly abbreviated as "&c." Following the same principle, with the rise of companies during the industrial revolution, "and company" began to be abbreviated as "&Co.", such as in this circa 1858 American script example. However, the ampersand in this example is one of the most unusual I have ever come across. It appears to draw on ancient systems of abbreviation. That is to say, abbreviations were commonly notated with: swashes, hash-marks, commas, apostrophes, slashes, underscores, super-scores, superscripts, and periods.

This unique "&" design was rendered as an x-height c-like mark flowing into a descender loop and surmounted with a superscript dot. I found this peculiar design on an old business card."

~2013, Don Marsh~
©2013 Don Marsh