When I was in high school, downloading customized fonts was actually free. I have backups with old folders containing over 100 customized fonts. I haven’t loaded them into a computer for several years, but I think I’m going to go ahead and do that.
I’m sort of surprised that you think an asterisk that obscure. (No insult intended. Just observing different persons’ perceptions/experiences.) I’ve read a little bit about font design and recall reading about various ampersands - and being stricken by how different they can be. Asterisks don’t strike me as terribly more obscure than ampersands.
I have to correct my previous statement - I saw several asterisks on my paper calendar (yes, I am that much of a Luddite!), and they are written with 8 points.
I would respectfully disagree. Asterisks are superscript characters (meaning they appear smaller than the main type and are raised off the baseline) whereas ampersands are full-size characters. And I don’t know if this is a fact or just my opinion, but I think that, due to their unique shape, ampersands are often paid special attention by font designers as kind of ‘statement’ designs, sort of like an artist signature.
Dammit, now I’m probably going to go down an ampersand rabbit hole… 
Thanks a lot, Dinsdale!
I looked that one up here to get a look at it. (My all-time favorite font, Bizzarro, doesn’t have an asterisk.)
Something like 20 years ago I compiled all of my downloaded and shareware CD fonts onto one DVD. I forget how many fonts it was (and many no doubt duplicates or near-clones) but it was at least tens of thousands. Gigabytes worth. I wonder if the DVD-R is still readable?..
Not trying to be disagreeable or claiming any expertise, but isn’t a nonsuperscripted asterisk used in some math functions - and possibly other contexts?
I’ve long been modestly interested in font design/choice, but like many areas, once you get beyond a pretty superficial curiosity, it gets damned deep damned fast.
Ref posts upthread I am surprised to notice the * on my keyboard is a 5-pointer. Which in turn surprises me that the symbol that key drops into my post as rendered in the default font is also a 5-pointer. If you’d asked me an hour ago I’d have said both were 6-pointers.
My original contribution to the thread is that one of the signature features of the old computer language APL was famous for using a very special set of special characters for everything. Such as A×B for multiply A times B, and A⋆B for A raised to the B power. With the 5-pointedness of the asterisk being at the time very weird and unique. Most other typewriters, computer keyboards, and typefaces of the era used 6-pointers.
When I write one with a pen or pencil, it’s 3 strokes yielding 6 points.
6
My Apple keyboard has a 6-pointer, which drops into my post as a fiver.
The scales have fallen from my eyes! Up until this point my life has been a hollow mockery!
This is the ampersand that someone made that tossed me down this rabbit hole. The original poster didn’t say, but it is obviously from the new ChatGPT/Sora combo, which clearly has Bing/DE3 beat in the area of meat-based typography.
Well, maybe the asterisk isn’t technically superscripted, since text that is set to superscript is typically raised above the height of the normal text. But the asterisk does normally appear smaller and raised off the baseline. I think when the asterisk is used as a multiplication symbol, it’s simply used as-is, like so:
2 * 2 = 4
This is true superscript
Nice marbling-- that looks like a prime cut of ampersteak. I’d salt & pepper that up and grill it to a nice medium rare.
When writing by hand, I typically make them as five pointed stars with the crisscrossing lines. My second instinct would be to do a plus with an ex over it, but thumbing through my notebooks, these days, at least, it’s always a small star.
Typographically, I first think of six points, then five points, then maybe eight points, but that’s just too many points when you get into smaller sized fonts.
I just asked ChatGTP for a meat asterisk and it threw a wildcard on that wildcard and gave seven points.
it could be a lot worse.
Asterdiks?
I prefer 6 pointed, but 5 pointed stars only require 5 stokes, without the pen ever leaving the paper. 6 pointed cannot be easily drawn without lifting the pen.
I’m unsure how you draw a 6 pointed star in 3 strokes - could you link to an example?
Yeah, pedantry, but I am actually interested in the answer.
Anyone, anyone at all, who is interested in typefaces has been down that rabbit hole.
I am fond of the Garamond Italic version.
Yes, that may be the most stylish and elegant of all the ampersands (the champersand?).
We have a difference in definition. I think a star is distinctly different from an asterisk. An asterisk is simple lines with no interior area, whereas the lines in a star get wider as they get closer to the center.
So a 6-point asterisk is three separate lines meeting in the middle. You are correct, you can’t draw it without lifting the pen between each line.
If you were to give me some text with the standard 5-pointed star 
on it, I’d think you were telling me “good job” or something. I wouldn’t interpret it as an asterisk.
I largely agree with you, but not all typeface/font designers do…
* is in theory different to ☆ but not guaranteed. On my version of Android, both are 5 pointed stars.
The obvious counterpoint is the Israeli flag style 6 point star made of two triangles.
The one on my keyboard has 5 points.
Wikipedia claims 5 or 6 is most common.
I can’t recall ever drawing one by hand?