I've made some TTF fonts of copyrighted glyphs (especially football jersey numbers and letters) for personal and hobby use, not making a profit from it.

Recently, I put my hands in some nice foundry catalogs. Some of them from 1890s, 1900s, are already in public domain. Others are newer and have copyrighted fonts.

My question is: Can I use the typefaces (that is, the scanned glyphs) from these catalogs to develop (i.e. vector remaking and converting) new fonts for personal, non-commercial use only? Or am I forbidden to use it even if it's only for my hobby projects?

1. I am not a lawyer.
2. Without knowing where you are (& thus what jurisdiction you're in), what your 'hobby projects' are & what exposure to the public they have, I think it would be difficult to give an informed opinion.
3. If your hobby projects are non-profit & only get seen by your family & friends, it's hard for me to see how you would get into trouble.
4. I am not a lawyer.
5. To get a good answer, you may well have to ask a lawyer.

@johnrafael: Get in touch with toto@k22, who makes fonts and is also one of the dafont forum moderators. He has extensive knowledge of fonts created from foundry catalogues, and if you let him know which alphabet designs you plan to digitize, he can likely let you know if someone else has already done the job. Nothing would prevent you from making one of your own, but to me, that would be a waste of time, if the existing one was well made.

If an alphebet design currently exists only on printed paper, creating a digital version is not copyright infringement. You can also make a font of your own from scans of an existing font. What you CAN'T do legally is to modify someone else' font files to create a knock-off which is largely the work of someone else.

Read the Fair Use provision of copyright law on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use. I use that extensively in most of my own fonts, which is part of the reason why all but one of mine are 100% free for all use.

An important provision of Fair Use is that you cannot legally earn money from appropriation of other people's intellectual property. If you made a T-shirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it that you drew yourself, you're not breaking any laws if you wear it. If you try to sell copies, however, copyright law would apply.

If you make a font under the fair use provision, and someone else uses it commercially, they might be infringing on copyright, but you are not liable. If I create bullets and give them away, I have no liability is someone else puts those bullets in a gun then shoots someone.