diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/type1font.py b/lib/matplotlib/type1font.py
index 094ff5560121..ff3ae21a594d 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/type1font.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/type1font.py
@@ -216,7 +216,7 @@ def _parse(self):
         # The spec calls this an ASCII format; in Python 2.x we could
         # just treat the strings and names as opaque bytes but let's
         # turn them into proper Unicode, and be lenient in case of high bytes.
-        convert = lambda x: x.decode('ascii', errors='replace')
+        convert = lambda x: x.decode('ascii')
         for token, value in filtered:
             if token is self._name and value.startswith(b'/'):
                 key = convert(value[1:])