Yeah, that would be my guess. Survived from through to late 1700s whilst only against the hand-powered press, then as soon as industrial presses (steam powered

Yeah, that would be my guess. Survived from through to late 1700s whilst only against the hand-powered press, then as soon as industrial presses (steam powered) appear circa 1800 and mass printing was now possible (double-output with far lower human effort being input) it dropped off. Still doesn't wholly explain it though. If it was seen as a valid character you would expect that the symbol would've been in the charset and have been used in print too.