Berthold

1858
On 1 July 1858, Hermann Berthold (born 19 August 1831 in Berlin) opened an “Institute for Electro-Plating”[1] at Wilhelmstraße 1.[2]

1861
In October 1861, he became a partner in a type­foundry, brass-rule factory, stereo­typing, and engraving business set up with Gustav Zechen­dorf, a relative. They named the company Zechendorf & Berthold.

A very early Berthold specimen. This 1863 flyer advertised border-printing elements from Zechendorf & Berthold. It was composed and printed by C. F. Weiss in Berlin. Kept at the Noord-Hollands Archief, inventory number 2487/231

1865
Berthold left the company on 1 January 1865. At the previous premises, he built a new factory manufacturing brass printing rules, with a machinist workshop and electro­plating. Making new and useful linear patterns soon secured him a widespread reputation for quality. Bert­hold’s business expanded, and his products went to all parts of the world where Gutenberg’s art was practiced.

The above composition, from the footer of one of Hermann Berthold’s brass-rule specimen sheets. was made from brass printing pieces and probably printed during the mid-1870s. While the intertwined HB is not a company logo, per se, it helps illustrate how Hermann Berthold was building his company’s brand. The composition is exquisite. I think the presswork’s quality is probably due to the capabilities of an external printing house since the Berthold company had likely not yet added an internal printing unit. Digitized by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

1869
To create space for the rapidly expanding com­pany, he moved into a larger factory build­ing at Belle-Alliance-Straße 88 in 1869.[3]

1878
In 1878, Berthold was entrusted by the other Berlin typefoundry owners – with the consent of their colleagues throughout the Empire – to create a measurement standard for the typo­graphic system based on the meter. This honor­able task, which presented great diffi­culties, was carried out with the usual care and mathematical precision of Berthold’s work. First, an Urmaß [or definitive measure] was made, examined by the responsible imperial author­ities, and officially set down. In May 1879, the typefoundries involved received officially verified partial measuring sticks, which were 30 cm long. That corresponded to 133 Nonpareille exactly, or 798 Didot points.[4] One meter may be divided into exactly 2660 points. Thus was the German standard created. It has since become the unchanging basis for all German-typefoundry products.

Hermann Berthold’s definitive measuring sticks formed the basis for the German typographic norm. Refining a system already in place in France, he delineated 30 cm into 798 Didot points. From the permanent printing and paper exhibit at the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin. Photo: C. Kirchner/SDTB.

1888, 1891
Patriarchal conditions prevailed in the work­shops. Masters and assistants worked hand in hand, allowing specialists to emerge. Each was an artist in the invention of patterns and in the treatment of his technique.[5] Ultimately, the tireless Berthold also felt the need for peace and quiet. At the instigation of the managing clerk[6] Balthasar Kohler, who had worked under Berthold for nine years, the salesman A. Selberg took over the factory on 14 March 1888. The company name did not change. In May 1891, Selberg transferred the business and its real estate to Kohler, who formed a limited partner­ship with the support of the Hirschler brothers’ banking house.

1893
Since some of the company’s biggest customers [were typefoundries who] were setting up their own facilities to manufacture brass printing rules, Kohler sought a way to expand the company’s scope of business. In 1893, the Gustav Reinhold typefoundry in Berlin – which had already incorporated the Leipzig-based Emil Berger typefoundry in 1890 – was taken over. Additionally, Kohler bought the Berliner Messinglinienfabrik AG at Reinickendorfer Straße 64 and merged it onto his com­pany’s premises at Belle-Alliance-Straße 88. The plot at Belle-Alliance-Straße 88 no longer offered enough space for future expansion, so the neigh­boring property at number 87 was purchased in 1894.

1894
In the spring of 1894, a subsidiary was founded in St. Petersburg, and an office with a ware­house was opened.

1896
In 1896, the H. Berthold company became a stock corporation with a 2,200,000 mark capital­ization.[7] It traded under the name H. Berthold Brass-Rule Factory and Type­foundry AG.[8]

1897
On 9 November 1897, the Bauer & Co. type­foundry in Stuttgart and Düsseldorf was acquired. It continued to operate as an indepen­dent business under its existing name. At the same time, Berthold’s capitalization increased to 3,000,000 marks.

1898
Karl Rupprecht, the previous owner of Bauer & Co., joined Berthold’s manage­ment in 1898.

In the summer of 1898, a separate piece of land was purchased for the St. Petersburg branch in the city center at 13 Meshchanskaya.[9] A large factory building was con­structed there. Two years later, a five-story building was built in front of it. At the end of 1898, brass-rule manu­facturing facilities were added to the Stuttgart branch.

Advertisement that Berthold ran in 1898 and 1899 issues of Deutscher Buch- und Steindrucker for Accidenz-Grotesk. The peculiar-looking plants at the bottom were composed from Berthold’s Stilisierte Cyclamen. Photographed at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

1899
Gustav Reinhold stepped down on 1 July 1899; he died shortly thereafter. On 4 July 1899, Dr. Oscar Jolles (born 10 November 1860) was initially appointed by a delegation from the board of directors. He officially joined the board on 1 January 1900.

Also in 1899, Bauer & Co.’s Düsseldorf branch was merged into the company’s Stuttgart base.

In November 1899, Berthold could move into its new factory premises in St. Peters­burg.

1900
In July 1900, the old St. Petersburg foundry of Georg Ross & Co. was purchased, and in February 1901, a branch foundry opened in Moscow.

1901
Karl Rupprecht stepped down from the manage­ment in 1901.

1902
In 1902, a large new building was built for the Stuttgart branch on its property at Rötestraße 17.[10] It moved into it that same year.

1904
Hermann Berthold died in Berlin on 23 December 1904.

1905
In the meantime, business relationships in the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy were growing.

The typefoundry J. H. Rust & Co. in Vienna was purchased in 1905. Its name was changed to H. Berthold, but otherwise, it continued operations. Construction of a modern, large new factory building began immediately on the property at Margareten­straße 94, which had been taken over from Rust & Co. For tax reasons, the Vienna branch was converted into a limited liability company in 1907.

1908
The A. Haase typefoundry in Prague, which had existed for about a hundred years, became the property of the Vienna branch of H. Berthold in 1908.

As Friedrich Bauer mentioned, the Haase foundry in Prague had been active for a long time. During the 1830s and ’40s – when the poster-types specimen above must have been printed – the Gottfried Haase Söhne printing house arguably had the most significant typefoundry in the Austrian empire. Photo: Ghent University Library, BIB.ACC.054851.

Meanwhile, the Berlin operation continued to grow and was enlarged by around half with a new building. Since the new rooms were not sufficient either, a third and larger extension was started in 1908, directed toward the property in front of it, which was carried out in two construction phases. The first part of the new factory building was occupied at the beginning of 1909.

With the collaboration of the H. Berthold AG, the Ferd. Theinhardt typefoundry was converted into a limited liability company in January 1908. Its shares became the property of H. Berthold AG.

1909
At the end of 1909, the second part of the new building at Belle-Alliance-Straße 87/88 was completed. Berthold moved in during the summer of 1910.

1910
In 1910, the location of the Ferd. Theinhardt GmbH company was relocated from Schöneberg to the H. Berthold AG factory building at Belle-Alliance-Straße 88, which has now been enlarged by its third expansion. The companies were merged.

On 10 November 1910, the St. Petersburg house received the honorable distinction of being appointed as a supplier to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg thanks to “its significant contributions to Russian printing at home and abroad, especially in the Slavic countries.” That gave [Berthold’s St. Petersburg branch] the right to use the coat of arms of the Imperial Academy.

1911
In 1911, the large Berthold Hauptprobe [complete specimen catalog] was published.[11] The large octavo-format volume contained 850 pages, which presented all company materials systematically and orderly. Also, the Viennese house was awarded the Imperial Eagle with Austrian Shield and Seal in recognition of its achievements.[12]

The St. Petersburg branch felt compelled to pur­chase its neighboring property at Meshchan­skaya 15 because further expansion of the business had to be considered.

The above drawing shows all Berthold locations in 1911. It is from the foundry’s catalog of that year. The large building at the top displays the company headquarters in Berlin-Kreuzberg. That structure – heavily damaged in 1945 – was rebuilt after the war. Berthold sold it in 1978. You can still visit it today; just look for the Mehringhof. More details about the building can be found here.

1912
At the general meeting of 8 March 1912, an increase in capitalization from 3 to 4 mil­lion marks was approved and carried out in April of that same year. In May 1912, the St. Petersburg branch acquired the inventory of machines, punches, and matrices – as well as the ware­house – from the Frankfurt-based Flinsch type­foundry’s St. Peters­burg branch. Flinsch thus withdrew from the Russian market.

1914
Stephan Pramor, head of the Moscow branch, was interned after the outbreak of war, and the [Moscow] foundry was destroyed in a popular uprising on 18 May 1915. The head of the St. Petersburg branch, Heimbert Leunig, was expelled from Russia in November 1914. Company manager Balthasar Kohler resigned in 1917 after almost 40 years in office. Thereafter, he was elected to the board of directors.

1917
In July 1917, part of the Otto Tech typefoundry’s equipment and warehouse was acquired. The other portion went to the Emil Gursch type­foundry.

1918
The Emil Gursch typefoundry was acquired on 1 January. Two of its owners, Karl Graumann and his son Erwin Graumann (born 17 March 1884), joined Berthold’s management.

In February 1918, the A. Reimann typefoundry was incorporated into the H. Berthold AG since it had to cease operations as a result of the difficulties of the war economy.

Photograph showing the Emil Gursch factory building shortly after its completion at the beginning of the twentieth century. Scanned from Die Entwicklung der Schrift­giesserei Emil Gursch, Berlin SW, 1866–1901 (Berlin, 1901), kept in the library at the Deutsches Technik­museum in Berlin. Another library prepared a digi­tization, available here. Gursch’s factory was just a few blocks away from Berthold’s. After Berthold acquired the Gursch foundry, it kept this factory in operation for several decades. Berthold did not give it up before the end of the Second World War. Today, the building stands behind the back courtyard of Gneisenau­straße 27 in Kreuzberg.

On 1 July 1918, Berthold acquired three type­foundries: Gottfried Böttger in Paunsdorf-Leipzig, C. F. Rühl in Leipzig, and A. Kahle Sons[13] in Weimar. Together with the Leipzig-based F. A. Brockhaus typefoundry, which Berthold had acquired in March, these found­ries continued operating as Berthold’s Leipzig-Paunsdorf branch. Eugen Schmidt and Wilhelm Böttger were appointed as deputy Berthold managers. They were the co-owners of C. F. Rühl and Gottfried Böttger, respectively.

1919
In 1919, the Julius Klinkhardt typefoundry in Leipzig merged with H. Berthold AG. Together with the foundries acquired earlier – Gottfried Böttger, C. F. Rühl, A. Kahle Söhne, and F. A. Brock­haus – it became part of the “Böttger-Klinkhardt” branch of H. Bert­hold AG in Leipzig.

1921
For the 25th anniversary of the stock corpor­ation’s establishment, Hermann Hoffmann’s illustrated Das Haus Berthold, 1858–1921 por­trayed the history of the company and presented specimens of its most important creations.

1922
In November 1922, the C. Kloberg typefoundry in Leipzig was purchased and merged into Bert­hold’s Leipzig branch.

The Leipzig branch’s building was significantly enlarged through renovation and newly-con­structed additions, based on the latest technical experience. As a result, all the Leipzig foundries Berthold had taken over could fit inside.

1923
In May 1923, H. Berthold AG entered into a joint venture with the Aktiengesellschaft für Schrift­gießerei und Maschinenbau in Offenbach am Main. The purpose of this was to further expand Berthold’s south-German market share and also to support the construction of rotary printing presses.[14]

Although its Russian factories had been nation­alized, Berthold did not want to give up its business in the peripheral states. Therefore, a new branch was established in Riga under the name H. Berthold Burtu Lietuve, Zeltys Leunigs un b-ri.

1927
To expand its business in the Austrian successor states and the Balkan countries, the type­foundries H. Berthold AG in Berlin and D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt am Main purchased the Vienna-based Poppelbaum typefoundry on 1 January 1927. A joint company called Bert­hold & Stempel GmbH thereafter operated from the Grüngasse 16a in Vienna’s fifth district.

The D. Stempel AG typefoundy in Frankfurt am Main owned [all] shares of the First Hungarian Typefoundry AG in Budapest.[15] H. Berthold AG in Berlin acquired half of them.

30 January 2021 screenshot from MTVA Archívum website showing all four photographs tagged with the keyword “Első Magyar Betűön­töde.” The images must be from the postwar years when this was the state-owned foundry of socialist Hungary.

H. Berthold AG also acquired a stake in the Haas’sche Schriftgießerei AG in München­stein near Basel, together with D. Stempel AG.[16] In December 1927, H. Berthold AG entered into a joint venture with the Letter­gieterij “Amster­dam” voorh. N. Tetterode in Amsterdam.[17]

1928
In January 1928, H. Berthold AG’s was increased by 1,300,000 marks in preferential shares to a total of 5,500,000 marks.[18]

Title page from an undated specimen folder that Berthold produced for a sales agent in Kolkata, K. Banerjea. The firth line reads “The largest type-foundry of the world.” Probably printed between 1924 and 1926 and later kept in the Berthold company library. SDTB/Hist. Archiv III.2-23979. A digitization is available here.

When H. Berthold AG began operating as a type­foundry, it initially followed a path of making advertising typefaces, and in that field, it has been groundbreaking. It then pivoted to all kinds of type-making and produced significant products. The Rococo ornaments, taken over from Gustav Reinhold’s foundry, were completed in 1892 and published in effective type specimens.[19]

Before 1900, the following typefaces were developed: Akzidenz-Grotesk, Carola, Original-Gotisch, Schreibschrift Romana, and Herkules. The roman and italic fonts from the Lateinisch family were completed [by 1900], before [three] additional types were published by 1911 [sic!] – so that, in 1911 [sic!], a special brochure 100 pages in length could present the five [total] styles.[20]

Above, you can see Berthold’s product number 771, better known as 36-point Accidenz-Grotesk. Its Latin-script characters were filed by Bauer & Co. with the Stuttgart design-patent registry on 14 April 1898. H. Berthold AG followed suit and registered them in Berlin two weeks later. To date, I have not found registration details for the Cyrillic characters.

Berthold’s product number 679 is shown above. Better known as Carola-Grotesk (sic!). These were 36-point letters cast on a 48-point body. The Latin script characters for Carola-Grotesk’s sizes were filed with Berlin’s design registry on 15 September 1896. The Cyrillic followed on 5 February 1897.

Originally spelled “Original-Gothisch,” Berthold filed the four smallest sizes of its Original-Gotisch design with the Berlin Muster-Register on 1 December 1898. Four more followed on 6 June 1899. FontsInUse.com’s editors write that “several German foundries added a lighter weight to their adaptations of Bradley.” This is one of those.

Product number 671 is shown above – the copperplate-script typeface Romana. These 36-point letters were cast on a 48-point body. Berthold filed the Latin-script characters with Berlin’s design registry on 7 May 1896, and the Cyrillic on 5 February 1897.

Berthold’s product 1113 is shown above. Better known as Herkules, these were 36-point letters cast on a 48-point body. Herkules’s sizes were filed with the Berlin design registry on 14 and 22 September and 14 October 1899. The Cyrillic registration took place on 26 January 1900.

Above, you can see product number 1535, the 48-point size of Lateinsch’s regular style. Bert­hold filed its Latin script characters with the Berlin design registry on various appointments throughout 1899. The Cyrillic followed in 1900 and 1901.

The most important products from 1901 to 1905 were the Augsburger Schrift, drawn by Peter Schnorr, the Mainzer Fraktur, the multiple styles of Herold, Imperial-Scheib­schrift, Aviso-Kursiv, Rekord, Korinna, the Augustea series and the Sorbonne series, and the ornaments and vignettes from the Anker series, made from Hanns Anker’s drawings.

Berthold’s Augsburger Schrift is shown above in its 48-point size. The typeface was filed with Berlin’s design registry on 10 September 1901.

On 22 July 1901, Berthold filed Mainzer-Fraktur’s design with the Berlin Muster-Register.

Berthold’s Herold typeface is shown above in its 36-point size. Its Latin-script characters were filed with Berlin’s design registry on 22. Juli 1901. Berthold filed the Cyrillic on 30 November 1904.

Berthold filed its Imperial copperplate script with Berlin’s design registry on 12 February 1901 (Latin) and 26 April 1901 (Cyrillic).

Aviso-Kursiv: Berthold filed its Latin script characters with Berlin’s design registry on 23 January 1903 and submitted the Cyrillic eight months later on 27 August.

Berthold filed Rekord with Berlin’s design registry on 27 October 1903.

Berthold filed Corinna with Berlin’s design registry on 21 November 1904.

Berthold registered Augustea’s design in Berlin on 23 November 1905. A week later, on 30 November, the typeface was registered in Vienna. A Budapest filing followed on 5 December.

Sorbonne. It’s Cheltenham, from ATF! But not? Really?! This one always got me. Anyway, Berthold filed Sorbonne for a design patent (that is not how those things were supposed to work??) in Berlin on Berlin 6 November 1905. On the 30th, it did the same in Vienna, and also in Budapest on December 5th. A design patent for Berthold’s Cyrillic extension was received a few years later. Sorbonne proved very successful for Berthold in Russia, where it became the typeface of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Sorbonne Cyrillic would go on to be used in the USSR as well. By that time, however, the type was presumably cast in a Soviet foundry instead of being imported from Berthold’s inter-war foundry in Riga.

The publication of the Mainzer Fraktur initiated a new movement in the creation of Fraktur types. Over the next five years, the following were created: Kaufhaus-Fraktur, Block – which included multiple-width alternates for various letters to facilitate justified text-setting – Kantate, and Berthold-Fraktur.

Berthold filed Kaufhaus-Fraktur with Berlin’s design registry on 29 December 1906.

This one is super famous: the first and regular style of the Block family! Sometime marketed as “Reklameschrift Block” [advertising typeface Block]. Berthold filed the weight’s sizes with the Berlin Muster-Register on 23 October 1908 and in Vienna, too, on the 26th.

Kantate and Halbfette Kantate (Kantate Bold), designed for Berthold by Johann Graf. Berthold registered the bold first, in Berlin 22 November 1909 and in Vienna three days later. The “regular” weight was filed with the Berlin Muster-Register in 13 May 1910, and the Vienna registry on May 18th.

The Berthold-Fraktur typeface’s design was filed with the Berlin Muster-Register on 28 Juli 1909. The next day, Berthold filed for an Austro-Hungarian design patent, too.

In 1910, Emil Gursch’s pantographic punch and matrix-engraving machines were introduced into the company. In that same year, the first edition of a specimen exchange organized by the company, “Thirty for Three,” was published, which brought together 30 sample letterheads. 1,250 marks were offered in prize money, and each participant who submitted three designs received a booklet with the best 30 entries. The undertaking was repeated four more times over the following years, namely for the design of envelopes, business cards, business adver­tisements, and stationery.[21]

In the decade from 1911 to 1920, many additions to earlier typefaces appeared, including Cyrillic extensions. New products included the Wiener Grotesk based on a drawing by the painter [Rudolf] Geyer in Vienna, the Zierschrift Marion, the Plakette ornament series from Hanns Anker, Alt-Mediäval from Max Hertwig, Stuttgarter Fraktur and Block-Fraktur from the painter [A.] Froescher in Stuttgart, Lo -Schrift from Louis Oppenheim in Berlin, Klinger-Antiqua from Julius Klinger in Vienna, and a heavy Block style,[22] etc.

Over this decade, many valuable punches and matrices from the typefoundries purchased by H. Berthold AG also became the company’s property, giving it a wealth of materials unlike that of any other typefoundry in the world.

Rudolf Geyer’s Wiener-Grotesk. Berthold regis­tered the design in Berlin on 19 June 1912. On July 2nd, it filled with the pattern registry in Vienna. Berthold also registered Wiener-Grotesk in Paris on 9 July 1912.

Sorry about the low-resolution quality of the above images. They show the five largest sizes of Marion, which Berthold registered in Berlin on 13 December 1913. The company filed in Paris on the 17th, and Vienna on the 19th, too.

At least internally, the initial name for Max Hertwig’s Alt-Mediäval typeface as “Halbfette Alt-Mediäval,” or Alt-Mediäval Bold. Berthold filed its “Halbfette Alt-Mediäval” with the Berlin Muster-Register on 25 July 1914. On the 27th of July, it registered the design in Vienna as well. That was the day before Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the First World War began, explaining why the entries in Berthold’s design-patent notebook for Alt-Mediäval’s registrations in France and Russia are blank.

Berthold filed Stuttgarter Fraktur with the Berlin registry on 1 June 1915 and the Vienna registry on June 12th. A painter named A. Froescher designed the typeface.

Forscher also designed Block-Fraktur. Berthold filed the design in Berlin on 15 January 1914, and in Vienna on February 12th.

Louis Opennheim’s Lo-Schrift. Berthold filed the typeface’s design with the Berlin Muster-Register on 9 April 1914. A similar registry took place in Vienna on 5 June.

Klinger-Antiqua, designed by Julius Klinkhardt. This typeface was produced by the Emil Gursch typefoundry, also of Berlin-Kreuzberg, and shown at the international BUGRA fair in Leipzig during the summer of 1914. Berthold acquired that foundry in 1918.

Berthold submitted Schwere Block to the Berlin design registry on 1 September 1922.

Since 1920, many good old typefaces have been recast, including the Unger-Fraktur, Walbaum-Fraktur, Walbaum’s roman and italic, and a Didot roman and italic. The Block family was further expanded to include eleven styles, and the Lo-series grew to include six. The Industria series, taken over from Gursch, was expanded to include more styles. Augustea and Journal-Antiqua were also expanded. New typefaces included Nova-Antiqua with italic and a heavier weight, two textura typefaces – Sebaldus and Straßburg –, Recta italic, and a gripping advertising typeface named Fanfare, condensed and extended.

The matrices for Unger’s Fraktur travelled around somewhat. Two Leipzig foundries had duplicates of the matrices: Drugulin and Klinkhardt. After the First World War, each of those foundries was acquired by larger competitors. Stempel took over Drugulin’s foundry, and Berthold bought Klinkhardt’s. Each began to heavily market their Unger-Fraktur types, causing the typeface to undergo quite a renaissance in terms of its use.

After the First World War, Berthold also acquired F. A. Brockhaus’s foundry, which in turn had purchased the Walbaums’ foundry back in the 1830s. Thus did the matrices for Walbaum’s Fraktur (above) and roman and italic types (below) arrive at Berthold. Brockhaus had already begun to advertise the Walbaum fonts again before the war had begun, no doubt as a response to other successful revivals like the the many made of Caslon’s roman, or ATF’s Bodoni, etc. Berthold was able to properly capitalize on the Walbaum revival, beginning in the early 1920s. Revived versions of Walbaum’s roman and italics are still in use today.

Walbaum-Antiqua

Walbaum-Kursiv

Industria was a pre-war sans serif published by the Emil Gursch typefoundry, which Berthold acquired in 1918. Berthold continued to sell Industria, at least for a decade and a half or so. The typeface was designed by Hermann Zehnpfundt, just like Journal-Antiqua below.

Hermann Zehnpfundt’s Journal-Antiqua, also originally published by Gursch.

Berthold filed Nova-Antiqua with Berlin’s Muster-Register on 15 August 1922.

Nova-Kursiv, the italic for the Nova-Antiqua shown previously, was filed with Berlin’s design registry on 8 September 1923.

Berthold submitted Sebaldus with the Berlin design registry on 31 January 1925.

Berthold filed Straßburg with the Berlin design registry on 26 January 1926.

Berthold filed Recta with Berlin’s design registry on 9 August 1926.

Berthold filed Fanfare with Berlin’s design registry on 25 April 1927.

Schmale Fanfare’s design was never officially registered; Berthold assumed that its design patent for Fanfare’s regular width would offer sufficient-enough protection.

Two volumes of the new Registerprobe specimen were published in 1926. These were based on a system of loose-leaf pages. When completed, it will be four volumes in length. The volumes contain 25 typographic categories.

The company has an extremely large selection of original Russian typefaces, as well as Greek, Hebrew, and almost all oriental scripts, including Devanagari and [Egyptian] hiero­glyphs, which were each original creations.[23]

Exemplary type-specimen brochures present all of the products to the professional community. The “Thirty for Three” series aims to serve the graphic arts industry. The educational film On the development of letterpress type,[24] which shows the design of matrices and the casting of type, was given to the German Letterpress Association[25] for teaching purposes. In addition, H. Berthold AG’s private press[26] publishes books that not only are excellent examples of German book design but which also offer valuable contributions to the history of the art of printing and, in particular, typefounding.

Alternative ending from Bauer’s 1914 edition

1914[27]
In its headquarters and branches, the firm of H. Berthold AG currently works with a total of 188 automatic typecasting machines,[28] 29 pivotal type casters,[29] and 307 other machines. A large percentage of these machines were developed and constructed internally. The company employs about 100 people in its offices and about 600 people in its workshops – a large percentage of them have been with the firm for 25 years or longer.[30] Whenever it participated in an exhibition, it received a first-place prize.[31]

When H. Berthold AG began operating as a typefoundry, it initially followed two paths: ornaments and advertising typefaces.[32] It has gained a lot of experience in both areas and acquired a great deal of practical excellence, which is expressed in its products. The adver­tising typefaces, in order of release, are Kalligraphia, Carola, and Herkules, the four styles of the Herold series, the two styles of the Kaufhaus-Fraktur series, the three styles of the Block series, and the just-released Block-Fraktur.

Kalligraphia predates H. Berthold’s typefoundry. The design was first cast by Gustav Reinhold’s foundry, who filed it with Berlin’s Muster-Register on 20 July 1892. Shortly thereafter, Berthold acquired Reinhold’s foundry (it was probably more of a merger), which marked its entry into the business of casting and selling type. Reinhold remained with Berthold as a company executive for several years. A notebook from his foundry, which Berthold updated until the 1940s, also records that Berthold filed for a design patent of Kalligraphia’s Cyrillic design on 4 December 1895.

Carola-Grotesk, already mentioned.

Herkules, already mentioned.

Herold, already mentioned.

Kaufhaus-Fraktur, already mentioned.

Block, already mentioned.

Block-Fraktur, already mentioned.

These are just the main products, typefaces that are particularly characteristic and that have an extra large image.[33] This kind of advertising faces that is valuable in practice and has become a model.

The published typefaces for body text and other purposes are Jubiläums-Fraktur, the three styles of the Mainz-Fraktur series, the six styles of the Lateinisch series, the five styles of the Sezession series, the nine styles of the Akzidenz-Grotesk series so far (with more to follow), the three styles of the Corinna series, the seven styles of the Sorbonne series, the four styles of the Augustea series, the two styles of the Berthold-Fraktur series, and soon-to-be-released Alt-Mediaeval.

Mainzer Fraktur, already mentioned.

Lateinisch, already mentioned.

It is not clear to me what the “nine” styles of Akzidenz-Grotesk that Bauer mentioned above were. By the First World War, there were ten interrelated typefaces advertised as part of the family.. Those included: 1. The initial Accidenz-Grotesk style, already mentioned. 2. A lighter weight design named Royal-Grotesk, which was added in 1902. Between 1908 and 1911, Berthold added: 3. Breite Accidenz-Grotesk, 4. Fette Accidenz-Grotesk, 5. Halbfette Accidenz-Grotesk, and 6. Breite magere Akzidenz-Grotesk. A seventh, Enge Accidenz-Grotesk, was added in 1913. The eighth, a Skelett style, was added by 1914. The ninth and tenth were Enge Steinschrift and Halbfette Bücher-Grotesk.

Sorbonne, already mentioned.

Augustea, already mentioned.

Alt-Mediäval, already mentioned.

Alongside that, the old standard types have been completely recut: the bold Aldine (Augustea Bold), the old sans serif (Bücher-Grotesk), and the heavy slab serif (Moderne fette Egyptienne).

Halbfette Augustea

Berthold filed Halbfette Bücher-Grotesk with Berlin’s design registry on 3 August 1904. Cyrillics were added in 1912. Later, during the 1950s, Halbfette Bücher-Grotesk was renamed and became an official part of Berthold’s Akzidenz-Grotesk family. Based in its design, though, it looks more like Helvetica.

Berthold received a German design patent on its Moderne fette Egyptienne from the Berlin registry on 12 February 1901.

The published series of ornaments has included: the Rokoko-Einfassungen, which was the first large-[character-set] series of border elements where figures were able to interlock through a system of numerous notches. Then there were the bold linear ornaments: Stilisierte Cyclamen, Säcular-Ornamente, Schwarz-Weiß-Ornamente, Atlas-Ornamente, and the Französiche Einfassung.

As a repercussion of the Seven Artists’ Exhibition in Darmstadt,[34] the following fine linear designs [were published]: Libellen-Ornamente, Buch-Ornamente, and the Silvana-Serie.

After that, the Anker series was published, which dominated the market for eight years and made its way into almost every printing office. This series followed the medallions, for which a second brochure has just been published. All these border-printing elements have been developed so that compositors can use them according to their liking and create variations with almost no limitations.

The company has an extremely large selection of original Russian typefaces available, as well as Greek, Hebrew, and almost all oriental scripts, including Devanagari and [Egyptian] hieroglyphs, which were each original creations.

Notes

1. In German: »Institut für Galvano-Typie«.
2. The building that Hermann Berthold opened his business in has not survived. It was located near the location of today’s Mehringplatz, in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. That was just south of what would soon become Berlin’s newspaper quarter.
3. Berthold built a series of buildings in the space behind this address, and it remained at this location until 1978. For more information about this Kreuzberg building complex, see an earlier post of mine on this site.
4. According to Hermann Berthold’s system – and all subsequent German industrial norms for typesetting – a Nonpareille was 6 Didot points in size.
5. This is utter capitalistic propaganda and even for Germany in 1928, I am surprised to read it in Bauer’s text. I do not think any other business in the book is described in similar terms.
6. In German: »Disponent«.
7. In January 2024 euros, that would have the equivalent purchasing power of €18,480,000, according to the Deutsche Bundesbank.
8. In German: »H. Berthold Messing­linien­fabrik und Schrift­gießerei AG«.
9. In 1917, this street name was changed to Grazhdanskaya Ulitsa; see Ferdinand Ulrich’s note on a page listing the locations of former typefoundries.
10. Some of this building still survives; see Ferdinand Ulrich’s note on a page listing the locations of former typefoundries.
11. This is a great type specimen catalog. The Staatsbibliothek has digitized its copy. The library’s date – 1909 – is likely a cataloging error.
12. In German: »Kaiserlicher Adler im Schild und Siegel«.
13. In German: »A. Kahle Söhne«.
14. In German: »Schnellpressen«. I must admit that I am not entirely sure whether the AG für Schriftgißerei und Maschinenbau manufactured more cylindrical presses rotary printing presses at this point. As the Offenbach firm’s name implies, it manu­factured not just fonts of type but also printing machinery. Up until this point, Berthold did not manufacture printing presses itself, unlike some of its large global competitors, including Nebiolo in Torino, Schelter & Giesecke in Leipzig, or Tetterode in Amsterdam.
15. In German: »Erste Ungarische Schriftgießerei AG«. In Hungarian: »Első Magyar Betűöntöde R. T.«. This foundry had been established by Dániel Czettel in 1890. Stempel acquired it after Czettel’s death in 1913. After the Second World War, the foundry was nationalized by the Soviet-backed socialist government of Hungary and it continued doing business, both for Hungarian printers and for those in other Eastern Block states. I do not know when the foundry closed down. Like state-owned foundries in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, it may have survived until the collapse of communist govern­ments at the end of the 1980s.
16. Berthold later sold its shares in the Haas Type Foundry to D. Stempel AG.
17. I think that the “joint venture” – Interessen­gemeinschaft in German – with Lettergieterij Amsterdam was bigger deal than Bauer suggests. A more recent account describes it this way: “In Dec­em­ber 1927 Typefoundry Amsterdam acquired a considerable interest in the Berlin type­foundry H. Berthold AG.” See John A. Lane, Mathieu Lommen, and Johan de Zoete, Dutch typefounders’ specimens. From the Library of the KVB and other collections in the Amsterdam University Library, with histories of the firms represented (Amsterdam: De Buitenkant, 1998), p. 29 ff.
18. Or the purchasing power of €23,100,000 in January 2024 (see note 7 above).
19. An opulent specimen printed for Gustav Reinhold’s foundry to promote the Rokoko-Ornamente has been digitized by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.
20. This cannot be correct; I suspect it was a typesetting error and that “1911” was set in place of “1901.” I think that the 1901 date of this long specimen for Lateinisch at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is correct. It has slightly more than 100 pages.
21. The fourth and fifth booklets from this series has been digitized by the Deutsches Technikmuseum.
22. In German: »Schwere Block«.
23. Either by Berthold itself, or designed and produced in-house at foundries it had acquired. The hieroglyphs, for instance, came with the Theinhardt foundry.
24. In German: »Vom Werdegang der Buch­druck­lettern«.
25. In German: »Deutscher Buch­drucker­verein«, a professional organization of employers within the printing industry.
26. This press’s German name was the »Berthold-Privatdrucke«.
27. In the first edition of Bauer’s book, he presented an ending with different details than his second edition provides; see Friedrich Bauer, Chronik der deutschen Schriftgießereien (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag des Vereins deutscher Schrift­gießereien, 1914), pp. 22–24.
28. In German: »Komplettgießmaschinen«.
29. In German: »Handgießmaschinen«.
30. I suspect that this easily made Berthold the second-largest typefoundry in Germany at the time, with just a few hundred fewer employees than Schelter & Giesecke.
31. National trade fairs and World’s Fairs had competitions for their exhibiting com­panies. Each category of prizes would have many winners, even multiple winners from the same industry. Berthold did well in these competitions, but its competition results were not singular within German typefounding. Other firms like Genzsch & Heyse and the Klingspor foundries, etc., were also serial award winners.
32. Note that, in the latter Chronik from 1928, Bauer hardly mentions Berthold’s many series of ornaments and border-printing elements. Those were incredibly important during the 1880s and ’90s, but quickly diminished in relevance during the twentieth century.
33. It can’t be literally teased out of Bauer’s text, but I think he is describing typefaces that had a particularly large impact, rather than designs that were simply bigger on the body.
34. The seven initial artists from the Darm­stadt artists’ colony were Peter Behrens, Rudolf Bosselt, Paul Bürck, Hans Christian­sen, Ludwig Habich, Patriz Huber, and Joseph Maria Olbrich.

The post Bauer’s view of Berthold up until about 1927 appeared first on TypeOff..

Almost all deserve more commentary than I have added here, especially the largest two firms: Eduard Haenel and Ferdinand Thein­hardt’s. Haenel’s foundry, for instance, was probably the most important German foundry of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, Friedrich Bauer’s chronicles do not provide tremendous details about its history. Even in the first edition of his Chronik, published when the firm was still active, it received less space than its then-larger contemporaries, like H. Berthold. By the time Bauer’s second edition appeared, the foundry had been closed for longer than a decade.

Haenel and especially Theinhardt’s foundry are well represented elsewhere on this site. Indeed, over the last six years, Theinhardt has been something of a patron saint for this site. His work is addressed in several posts, accessible via the keyword Theinhardt.

Bauer’s accounts of the Haenel foundry did not mention a single type specimen. Considering the volume of mid-century specimens that Haenel and his successors printed, that seems quite an unfortunate oversight. Most of the specimens that the firm must have published after its move to Berlin from Magdeburg were digitized a few years ago. Here is a list of well-digitized copies. I have left off unsatisfactory “Google Books” digitizations:

1. The best place to start is with a large volume of specimen sheets. The foundry’s last owner, Alexander Jürst, donated it to the library of Berlin’s Kunstgewerbemuseum in 1906. Its title page states that it contains everything the foundry had produced “up to that point.” Nevertheless, I think that the year of the volume’s binding was closer to 1896 than 1906 and that the foundry’s later works were not included.
2. A lovely set of polychromatic ornaments printed before the move to Berlin
3. An undated collection of a few Haenel specimen sheets from Günter Gerhard Lange’s collection
4. A specimen of polychromatic ornaments and borders printed before 1864
5. Another circa 1864 collection of borders
6. The wonderful hard-bound catalog from 1891.
7. A volume of specimen sheets misdated to 1918, but surely bound before 1896
8. A catalog bound after 1896, which Berlin’s Kunstbibliothek catalogs as being from 1902.
9. A circa 1900 brochure
10. A brochure with the same cover, cataloged by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin in 1915 but not printed that late. It is followed by four other brochures, none of which are as late as their 1915 cataloging date.
11. Four later brochures, printed before 1915.
12. A specimen of new typefaces, from either around 1902 or around 1912
13. A circa 1912 catalog

The text below – save for image captions and notes – is my translation of pages 20 to 24 of Friedrich Bauer’s Chronik der Schriftgiessereien in Deutschland und den deutschsprachigen Nach­bar­ländern. It was published in 1918 by the Verlag des Vereins Deutscher Schriftgießereien, whose headquarters was then in Offenbach am Main.

Lehmann & Mohr – Assmann

1834
E. Ludwig Lehmann and Karl Wilhelm Mohr purchased a subsidiary foundry from Dreier & Rost-Fingerlin in Frankfurt am Main that operated in Hamburg under the direction of Christian Reinheimer on 1 August 1834. They transferred it to Berlin and renamed the company Lehmann & Mohr. Mohr had previously worked at Dresler & Rost-Fingerlin for seven years.

1835
In 1835, the company published a specimen for a verschobene Egyptienne.[1] It was later followed by specimens for display typefaces and vignettes.

1838
A subsidiary in Litoměřice, Bohemia was established in 1838 and called Medau, Lehmann & Mohr.

A “verschobene Egyptienne” from the Proben der vorzüglicheren Schriftensorten, nebst Ein­fass­ungen, Vignetten und Guilloche-Verzierungen, aus der Buchdruckerei des F. Gastl (Brno, 1844) [link]. I don’t know the source of Gastl’s type and do not expect that it came from Medau, Lehmann & Mohr. However, these letters illustrate what that foundry’s “verschobene Egyptienne” might have looked like.

1853
On 1 Januar 1853, sole ownership of the “Type­foundry and und Stereotypists managed for joint account since 1834”[2] was transferred to K. W. Mohr, who continued to operate it under its old name.

The foundry operated with just one casting furnace in 1854.

1873
W. Ohm Jr. purchased the Lehmann & Mohr typefoundry on 10 January 183. It continued to operate under the name Lehmann & Mohr (W. Ohm jr.). The foundry later continued under the name F. W. Assmann in Berlin. Since 1870, F. W. Assmann had been the owner of the typecasting machine factory that the punch­cutter C. Kisch had established in 1847. That was the first independent casting-machine manufacturer in Germany. Lehmann & Mohr had purchased its first machine. After Assmann purchased the foundry, he gave up the manu­facturing of casting machines.[3]

Above, you can see the three largest sizes of Schmale runde Grotesk, a condensed rounded sans created at the F. W. Assmann foundry in Berlin, probably during the mid-1880s. In the 1890s, when H. Berthold began casting type, it acquired matrices for the typeface. An internal Berthold notebook indicates that its Schmale rund Grotesk came from the Assmann foundry. Nevertheless, its specimens for the types, like this one, claimed that they had originated in house – a falsity for which I have no explanation to offer. Rounded sans serifs were probably the most popular Grotesk variety in Germany during the 1880s.

1899
F. W. Assmann died in 1899. The business was continued on his widow’s account by Georg Schmedes.

1915
On 31 December 1914, the company ceased operations. The foundry was purchased by Gebr. Klingspor in Offenbach am Main on 1 February 1915 and dissolved.

Haenel – Gronau

1838
Eduard Haenel (born 1804) moved the type­foundry he had founded in 1830 from Magdeburg to Berlin after a 1 May 1838 fire destroyed the Haenel Court Printing House, which had been established in 1731. At first, Lützowerwegstraße 44 was the Berlin location of the foundry, then Lützowerwegstraße 9. In conjunction with the typefoundry, Haenel also established a letterpress-printing house with lithographic and copperplate-printing facilities here. He did this by expanding a workshop for the printing of Prussian banknotes that he had already set up in 1835. For his typefoundry, he purchased matrices of the best French and English roman types. In particular, he offered display types in an unconventionally rich selection. He also had a number of good typefaces cut, especially in gothic and chancellory styles [i.e., the subcategory of blackletter called Kanzlei], as well as some of his own display faces. Haenel had great success with these types, a large percentage of which were cut from Heinrich Ehlert, who went solo in 1858.

The four largest sizes of the Haenel/Gronau foundry’s Schmale Canzlei, from its 1891 catalog. The typeface is one of at least four in the Kanzlei style to have been cut inside the foundry, although I cannot ascertain whether it came from Heinrich Ehlert’s hands or not.

1845
In 1845, Haenel was the first to introduce the pivotal casting machine to Germany. He had its inventor, the Dane Lauritz Brandt, construct it on his premises, and he delivered Haenel delivered pivotal casters to other typefoundries as well.

1852
On 1 March 1852, Karl David purchased the letterpress, lithographic, and intaglio printing house from von Eduard Haenel as well as the typefoundry, the printers’ ink factory, and the real estate at Lützowerwegstraße 44.[4] He continued the business under the name of Eduard

Haenel’s printing house and typefoundry. The Dessauer Bank was a part-owner.

1856
Eduard Haenel died in Berlin on 16 August 1856.

1864
Karl Wilhelm Gronau, who had been a manager under Haenel and David since 2 January 1852,[5] purchased the business and the real estate from the Bank für Handel und Industrie in Darmstadt on 1 January 1864. He renamed the business Wilhelm Gronaus Buchdruckerei und Schriftgießerei.

Alexander Jürst became a part-owner on 1 May 1864.

1887
Wilhelm Gronau died in 1887. His widow remained a part-owner of the business, which moved to Berlin-Schöneberg in 1896.

1905
In 1905, the printing office split off from the type­foundry and continued operating under the name Gebhardt & Landt GmbH. The type­foundry’s name did not change.

1909
Mrs. Agnes Gronau left the company in 1909, which was thereafter solely maintained by Alexander Jürst.

1918
Commercial councilor[6] Hans Alexander Jürst died on 20 April 1914. Gebr. Klingspor in Offenbach am Main purchased the foundry in 1918.[7]

Schneggenburger & Krumwiede

1833
The punchcutters Schneggenburger & Krumwiede,[8] located at Alte Jakobstraße 5 in Berlin,[9] published an 1833  specimen for a Fette Fraktur in sizes ranging from Petit to Text.[10] In1840, the typefoundry and punchcuttery G. F. Schneggenburger published a quarto-sized specimen.[11]

Krumwiede’s Fette Fraktur, in its Text size – i.e., around 20 Didot points. The specimen is a close-up from a page of the 1837 catalog printed for the in-house typefoundry at the Decker printing house in Berlin.

Hayn

1838
In 1838, a typefoundry was operating within the A. W. Hayn printing office, which had been established by Gottfried Hayn in 1798.[12] In 1854, it operated with once casting furnace and two pivotal typecasting machines. It still exists as an in-house foundry.

Beyerhaus

1840
From the typefoundry of A. Beyerhaus, an 1840 specimen of characters from a Chinese typeface is known.[13] These were cut in steel “under the direction of Director-General Dr. von Olfers by A. Beyerhaus in Berlin for the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin and for the missionary Carl Gützlaff in China.”

In addition to standard typefaces, an octavo specimen from this period (1840) has a total of 16 pages showing 165 figures of kaleidoscopic border-printing elements, printed at the office of A.W. Schade.[14]

A specimen of new Chinese types by Augustus Beyerhaus, Berlin, engraver to His Majesty the King of Prussia, 1851. Click to enlarge. The broadsheet was printed for the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London and I shot this terrible photograph of it at the Noord-Hollands-Archief in Haarlem, where it has the inventory number 2487/1767. There is also a copy of this broadsheet at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. We should all be thankful that the Enschedé printing house and the Tetterode typefoundry preserved such thorough specimen collections over time.

Moeser & Kühn

1842
The W. Moeser & Kühn printing house, established on 2 July 1842, also set up a typefoundry. In 1854, that operated with two casting furnaces and one pivotal caster. Today, it still operates as a dependent foundry within the printing house.[15]

Schoppe

1844
The C. G. Schoppe punchcuttery and type­foundry was established on 1 April 1844 and located in the Dessauer Straße 1. In 1845, it published quarto-sized complete specimen.[16]

1853
In 1853, this foundry published specimens for a “Centralschrift.” The typeface is remarkable – a better term might be odd – for the upper halves of its letters being roman in style, with Fraktur-style lower sides.[17]

Close-up on the two largest sizes of the Central­schrift from »Neueste Proben der Schriftgiesserei und Schriftschneiderei von C. G. Schoppe in Berlin.« Printed by G. Bernstein, it accompanied issue 9 of the Journal für Buchdruckerkunst, Schriftgießerei und die verwandten Fächer in 1853. Photo: Kunst­biblio­thek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Photographed by Dietmar Katz.

1854, 1862
In May 1854, Hermann Dehnicke joined as a co-owner; the company changed its name to C. G. Schoppe & Comp. Around this time, it operated with three casting furnaces and two pivotal typecasting machines. Dehnicke left the company on 1 October 1862.

1867
In July 1868, the remaining cast-type inventory was put up for sale at a 50 percent discount. Wilhelm Woellmer took over the foundry in December 1867 and merged with his company.

Theinhardt

1849
In 1849, Ferdinand Theinhardt (born 3 May 3 1820 in Halle an der Saale) established a type­foundry in Berlin. In 1833, Theinhardt had begun an apprenticeship at the old Gollner typefoundry in his hometown of Halle, and he learned typefounding and punchcutting there. After that, he went to Eduard Haenel’s in Berlin before moving to Frankfurt am Main to work for Nies. Returning to Berlin, Theinhardt once again worked at Haenel’s, where he remained until starting his own business in 1849.

1851
Theinhardt enjoyed his first successes through the cutting and casting of types for government securities. In particular, he supplied the types for the Prussian State Printing Office, established in 1851. He also cut very good Fraktur and roman faces. In 1854, his foundry operated with three casting furnaces.

Since 1851, Theinhardt had cut more than 2,000 hieroglyphic punches for Professor Lepsius;[18] later he cut the punches for Sanskrit, Avestan, Hebrew, and Demotic types – as well as types for other foreign scripts, including cuneiform.[19] For Mommsen’s Corpus inscriptionum latinarum (published from 1863 to 1893),[20] Theinhardt drew and cut seven sizes of Latin-script and two sizes of Greek-scripts types,[21] and Archaic Latin majuscules.[22] The latter[23] were re-released in 1926 by H. Berthold AG under the name “Klassik.”[24]

Also noteworthy is the cut of an “Altdeutsch” modeled on Gutenberg’s textura,[25] which is now distributed by Berthold as “Mainzer Gothisch.”[26] Genzsch & Heyse acquired matrices for the fonts, added larger size that it cut in-house, and then published the package as their “Psalterium” typeface.[27]

Altdeutsch’s 28 and 36 point sizes.

1885
Since his son had died at a young age, Ferdinand Theinhard sold his typefoundry off in 1885. It was purchased by the Mosig brothers and Oskar Mammen.

1906
Ferdinand Theinhardt died in 1906, aged 86. His 1899 biography, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, were republished as a bibliophile edition by H. Berthold AG at the end of 1920, commemorating the centenary of his birth.

1908
With the collaboration of the H. Berthold AG, the Ferd. Theinhardt typefoundry was converted into a limited liability company in January 1908. Its shares became the property of H. Berthold AG.

1910
In 1910, the company moved from Schöneberg to Berlin’s Belle-Alliance-Straße 88, where it was merged into H. Berthold AG’s headquarters.[28]

Fickert

1852
The brothers Karl W. E. and Gustav A. L. Fickert (born in 1822 and 1825, respectively) established a typefounding, stereotyping, punchcutting and engraving company under the name Gebrüder Fickert [Fickert Brothers] in Berlin on 1 October 1852. On 1 May 1855, they added a printing business.

In 1854, the foundry operated with three casting furnaces.

1864
In 1864, the typefoundry was given up. Its stores of type and matrices were put up for sale in December 1864.

Notes

1. A verschobene Egyptienne is a three-dimensional slab-serif typeface, whose letters appear to be turning on an axis. You can see one on the left-hand (i.e., top half) of this specimen page from a Brno-based printer active in the 1840s.
2. In German, »seit 1834 für gemeinschaftliche Rechnung geführte Schrift- und Stereotypen-Gießerei«.
3. Two Assman foundry specimens were digitized a few years ago: one from the former Berthold library, and another kept at Berlin’s Kunstbibliothek, which Karl Klingspor donated to one of the library’s predecessor institutions.
4. The sale may have been a few days later than this, see note 4 below. Haenel kept his residence, which was located very nearby. His family remained there until 1861; see Paul Enck, »Die Druckerei Hänel«.
5. Eduard Haenel made Karl Wilhelm Gronau a manager of the company on 2 January 1850, two years earlier than mentioned in the text. Both Haenel and Gronau surrendered all rights to company management when Karl David purchased the firm on 16 March 1852. David must have re-hired Gronau immediately after that point. An announcement of the sale, signed by Haenel and Gronau, has been digitized by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
6. “Commercial councilor,” or Kommerzienrat, was a title given to successful business­men who had donated consider­able funds toward public use. It came with no duties whatsoever, and after the dissolution of the monarchies in Germany, it was no longer awarded – except, for a time, in Bavaria. I have not yet found record of the date Alexander Jürst was honored with this title or what his public works might have been, though I assume they were for members of the printing industries.
7. According to a notice in the German government newspaper, Karl and Wilhelm Klingspor’s purchase of the foundry must have been made three years earlier, by 22 January 1915; see Deutscher Reichsanzeiger 1915:57 (9 March 1915), Fünfte Beilage (n. p.).
8. Friedrich Bauer’s first edition, Chronik der deutschen Schriftgießereien (1914), included no entry for this foundry.
9. I have not the faintest idea where a copy of this, or the 1840 specimen mentioned in the same paragraph, might be kept today.
10. Nor have I yet seen a copy of this specimen. For more information about Krunwiede’s Fette Fraktur, please refer to another page on this website, Fette Fraktur questions.
11. I do not know if the name change reflected on this 1840 specimen came about because Krumwiede left the business for other terrains, or because he had died in the intervening years. I have not yet seen a copy of this specimen, either,
12. Friedrich Bauer’s first edition (note 8 above), did not include an entry for this foundry.
13. Bauer’s first edition (note 8 above), did not include an entry for this foundry. I have not been able to locate Beyerhaus’ 1840 specimen of his Chinese typeface. A later specimen of the type is shown as an image above.
14. A copy of Beyerhaus’s kaleidoscopic elements is at the Allard Pierson museum in Amsterdam. It is item number 2 from shelf mark OTM: KVB LPF 328 (1–14).
15. Bauer’s first edition (note 8 above), did not include an entry for this foundry.
16. In Bauer’s first edition (note 8 above), the entry for the Schoppe foundry follows Theinhardt’s foundry, rather than preceding it. He was not yet away of the foundry’s establishment date, not of its 1845 specimen. I have not been able to locate a copy of Schoppe’s initial specimen yet.
17. Four sizes of the Centralschrift – Tertia, Text, Doppelmittel, and Kanon – were shown in a supplement to Journal für Buchdruckerkunst, Schriftgießerei und die verwandten Fächer 20, issue 9 (1853). That is the oldest specimen for the typeface that I have yet seen.
18. Augustus Beyerhaus – mentioned further above in this post – was the punchcutter initially entrusted to cut Lepsius’s hieroglyph type. I do not know why the project was transferred to Theinhardt. For more information about the resulting face, see this post on their use by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Today, the hieroglyph punches are maintained by the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin, and I have some information about them here. Theinhardt prepared a specimen for the face in 1875.
19. Like Theinhardt’s specimen for his hieroglyph face mentioned above, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has digitized his 1877 cuneiform specimen.
20. Publication of Corpus inscriptionum latinarum volumes began once again in the twentieth century. Indeed, the project is still ongoing, as you can read on its website.
21. Bauer misinterpreted this information slightly. Theinhardt cut six sizes of a Roman inscriptional-lettering style typeface for the Corpus inscriptionum latinarum project. He named this typeface Monumental, and specimen of its six sizes is included in a collection of sheets digitized by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. The next sheet in that volume shows similar-style Greek capitals in two sizes.
22. The sheet mentioned above with Theinhardt’s monumental Greek also includes one size of “Archaic” Latin. The name Altlatein seems to me to be a misnomer, however, as stylistically the style of letter used came after the “Trajan”-style letter, not centuries before it.
23. Friedrich Bauer made a mistake here. The monumental-lettering-style types that Berthold re-published in the 1920s was not Theinhardt’s Altlatein but six of the classical-style majuscule sizes.
24. The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has digitized Berthold’s specimen brochure for Klassik. Regarding the Monumental/Klassik typeface, see also Charles Maze’s “Three typefaces for Latin epigraphy in France and Germany, 1846–63” on abyme.net.
25. An early 1890s catalog from the Ferd. Theinhardt foundry – published after Ferdinand Theinhardt had sold off the business – includes the Altdeutsch typeface. Its largest size is 36 point. A specimen sheet printed after Berthld’s acquisition of the firm in 1908 shows more Altdeutsch sizes – up to 72 point. Based on their product numbers, though, I think that the Ferd. Theinhardt foundry added the fonts, not Berthold after 1908.
26. The Berthold-Schriften notebook kept by the foundry after 1900 lists, on page 150, that the Mainzer Gothisch fonts came from the Theinhardt foundry. Berthold’s large catalog, from circa 1911, includes Mainzer Gothisch, too, beginning on page 229.
27. A circa 1912 catalog from Genzsch & Heyse shows its instance of the typeface, there named Psalter-Gotisch instead of Psalterium. Page 142 indicates that the 48, 60, and 72 point sizes were cut by Genzsch & Heyse. I cannot yet ascertain whether Theinhardt and Berthold sold Genzsch & Heyse’s added sizes, or cut their own 48, 60, and 72 point additions in parallel.
28. Today, Belle-Alliance-Straße 88 is Mehringdam 43 – a landmarked tenement building originally constructed in 1859. Hermann Berthold purchased it in 1869 and over the next several decades, the Berthold factory was built on a plot behind it. To read about Berthold’s 1869–1978 headquarters, see this post.

The post Berlin foundries, part 3 appeared first on TypeOff..

Johann Friedrich Unger learned the printing trade in Decker’s printing house. I’ve written about Decker and its foundry here before. In 1879, they were joined with the Prussian State Printing House to establish the Reichsdruckerei. After the Second World War, the Bundes­druck­erei – or Federal Printing House – was created as its successor. In the 1980s, the Bundesdruckerei’s collection of typographic punches from Decker’s and the Reichsdruckerei was transferred to Berlin’s Museum für Technik und Verkehr, now the Deutsches Technik­museum in Berlin. A few years ago, I helped catalog these punches at the museum.

This post’s sources

The best-published source on the history of the Decker printing house is Nikolaus Weichsel­baumer’s article »Die Druckerfamilie Decker und die klassizistische Typographie in Berlin um 1800«.[3] Ernst Crous’s 1929 history of the Reichs­druckerei includes a thorough summary of the typefaces created for its in-house foundry, as few new Reichs­druckerei types appeared after that.[4] Much more literature is available on the Unger foundry even though it operated for a shorter period.

Unger’s foundry was particularly active during its first decade, the 1790s, selling roman and italic types from the Didots and Unger’s reformed Fraktur, which he cut with Firmin Didot and Johann Christoph Gubitz. Just as in my previous post on the Thurneysser and Francke foundry, Crous’s 1928 book on the Berlin foundries active before the early 19th century provides a wealth of information on the Decker and Unger foundries, even nearly a century after its publication.[5] Unger and his types played a pivotal role in the debates in German publishing regarding the use of roman and Fraktur types, at least those parts of those long-running debates concurrent with the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.[6] In the 21st century, this has been addressed in detail by, e.g., Susanne Wehde[7] and especially Christopher Busch.[8]

Less literature is available for the history of Trowitzsch & Sohn’s in-house foundry.[9] Those printers took over the Unger printing and typefounding business in 1821. They continued to found type for more than 70 years but then in 1897, Trowitzsch & Sohn sold its in-house foundry to the Rotterdamsche Lettergieterij.[10] Since that firm was acquired by Joh. Enschedé en Zonen a few years into the 20th century, the best account of the Unger foundry’s complete range of typefaces appears the English-language edition of Charles Enschede’s Type­foundries in the Netherlands, revised by Harry Carter and Netty Hoeflake in 1978.[11] As Enschedé wrote: “Those [matrices] of historical interest, having for long been disregarded, were untouched, for the most part still in the paper packets in which, most probably, Unger himself had left them.”[12] Having the matrices enabled Enschedé to recompose one of Unger’s specimen books[13] and a 1793 pamphlet.[14]

Not all of Unger’s type specimens have been digitized. When digitizations of specimens mentioned below are available, I have linked to them in the text and/or this post’s footnotes. The early specimens from the Decker foundry are also not digitally available. However, in a 2021/2 project to digitize historical type specimens from Berlin, most of Decker’s later catalogs were digitized, as were the Reichsdruckerei’s. Specimens from two more foundries mentioned below – Gubitz’s and Trowitzsch & Sohn – were also digitized.

Specimens not explicitly mentioned in the text below include one of Decker’s for vignettes from 1821, an 1837 Decker catalog, an 1840 Decker specimen, and Decker’s bi-lingual catalog for the Great Exhibition in London from 1851. The latter may have been the thickest single-volume German foundry catalog of the 19th century, although – true to the time – its pages include a lot of white space. Decker published supplements to that catalog in 1859, 1862, 1862, and 1867. Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek digitized Decker’s 1844 catalog, albeit in lower quality. The Reichsdruckerei’s three-volume catalog from 1886 was digitized, as were three later Reichsdruckerei specimens from around 1910. Two volumes – each with similar collections of specimen sheets – from Trowitzsch & Sohn’s foundry were also digitized. Hopefully, they will assist the research into that foundry’s history, which I find chronically overlooked.

Broadsheet from Decker’s foundry for its Monumental-Versalien typeface. The actual size is 62.4 × 73 cm. The Kunstbibliothek in Berlin has misclassified this print as a lithograph from about 1900; it must be printed directly from the type and date to around 1850. Photo: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek / Dietmar Katz. Public Domain Mark 1.0.

The following text – save for image captions, the post script about the Unger-Fraktur, and the footnotes – is my translation of pages 15–19 from Friedrich Bauer’s Chronik der Schriftgießereien in Deutschland und den deutschsprachigen Nachbarländern (1928). For more details about that book, see my Friedrich Bauer Project landing page.

Decker – Reichsdruckerei

1767
In 1767, at the instigation of Frederick II, the royal court printer Georg Jakob Decker added a typefoundry to his printing office. Decker’s ancestors came from Eisfeld in Thuringia and had been printers for four generations in Basel, Breisach, and Colmar. His great-grandfather Georg Decker acquired a printing office in Basel through marriage in 1635 and was made an academic printer in 1644. Georg Jakob Decker (born 12 February 1732 in Basel) was the son of Johann Heinrich Decker. He came to Berlin, marrying Louise Dorothea [Grynäus], the daughter of the academic printer Johann Grynäus, on 8 January 1755.[15] On 30 November 1756, [Georg Jakob Decker] became a partner in [his father-in-law’s] printing house, established by Arnold Dussarrat in 1713,[16] which changed its name to Grynäus & Decker. On 31 January 1763, Decker became the sole owner of the business, and on 26 October 1763, he received the title and rights of a Royal Court Printer. To establish a typefoundry,[17] Decker contacted the famous Paris typefounder Simon Pierre Fournier le jeune.[18] Fournier recommended punchcutters and typefounders to him. In addition to Fournier, Decker bought matrices for the best contemporary typefaces from Didot in Paris, Bodoni in Parma, and Haas in Basel, among others.

1787
Decker was appointed Privy Court Printer by Frederick William II on 19 September 1787 in recognition of the printing of Frederick the Great’s works, translated into German, at the Royal Palace in Potsdam.[19] Decker had first set up ten presses in rooms assigned to him in the palace – this was later expanded to 20 presses.[20] Thus, the printing of the 25-volume work could be completed in just over two years.

1792
Georg Jakob I Decker died on 17 November 1799. At that time, the Decker typefoundry not only worked to meet its own printing house’s needs but also hose of other printers. Many deliveries even went abroad. The son of the previous one, Georg Jakob II Decker (born 9 November 1765, a partner since 1 July 1788), had already taken over the business on 25 June 1792, which from then on was called the »Georg Jakob Decker & Sohn, Königl. Geh. Ober-Hofbuchdruckerei«.[21] Decker further expanded the typefoundry by purchasing matrices from, among others, his brother-in-law Wilhelm Haas in Basel, Levrault in Strasbourg,[22] and the Hessen­land type­foundry in Brandenburg.[23] Decker was the first German printer to support the inventor of the double-cylinder press, Friedrich König in Germany, by placing an order.[24]

1819
Georg Jakob II Decker died on 25 August 1819. After his death, the business continued under a guardianship.

His sons Karl Gustav Decker (born 23 January 1801) and Rudolf Ludwig Decker (born 8 January 1804) took over the business on 21 January 1828. The former died on 20 April 1829, while the latter led the printing house to brilliant heights. The typefoundry was maintained. Quality Fraktur typefaces were cut there, for instance, as well as various oriental typefaces for the Berlin Academy of Sciences.[25]

One drawer from a cabinet of steel typographic punches from the Bundesdruckerei. Inside are the punches for Decker’s Grobe Sabon Fraktur. They were cut before 1837. These are part of the printing and paper collections at the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin (SDTB 1/2018/0342, drawer 24).

Specimen page for the Decker foundry’s Grobe Sabon Fraktur face. This is the size printed from the type cast from matrices the above punches struck. This page (cropped) is from the 1837 Decker foundry catalog.

1854
In 1854, the typefoundry operated four furnaces and two pivotal typecasting machines.[26]

1863
In honor of the business’s centenary, Rudolf Decker was elevated into the hereditary nobility in 1863. Thereafter, the company ran under the name of the Royal Privy Court Printing House (R. v. Decker).[27] At that time, the foundry employed 15 castermen and twelve apprentices.[28]

1877
Rudolf von Decker died on 12 January 1877. According to legislation enacted on 23 May 1877,[29] the typefoundry and the printing house, along with the real estate they operated on, became the property of the German Empire on 1 July 1877.

The purchase price for the entire property belonging to the printing house, located on Berlin’ Wilhelmstraße 75,[30] was 6,780,000 marks. Excluding the buildings, 1,780,000 marks were paid for the printing works, the type­foundry, and the auxiliary workshops.[31] However, neither Decker’s publishing business nor commissions from private customers were not taken over by the imperial government. The staff amounted to 325 people. There were two steam engines in operation, as well as 22 cylinder presses, 21 hand presses, and eight pivotal type­casting machines.

1879
According to legislation enacted on 15 May 1879 and put into effect from 1 April 1879,[32] the Royal Prussian State Printing Office at Oran­ien­straße 92–94 – which had been established in Berlin in 1851 to print securities – was purchased by the imperial government for the price of 3,573,000 marks and immediately merged with Decker printing office. The combined printing works were renamed the Reichsdruckerei and assigned to the post and telegraph administration.[33] The management was given over to [a man named Büsse, who had been] the director of the former Prussian State Printing Office.[34]

To physically combine the Decker Printing Office with the Prussian State Printing Office, two of the latter printing house’s neighboring properties were purchased and redeveloped between 1879 and 1881 according to the Reichsdruckerei’s needs. After occupying the new facility, the [Reichsdruckerei] staff numbered around 700.[35]

In February 1880, the Reichsdruckerei and two Berlin foundries (Ferd. Theinhardt and Trowitzsch & Sohn) began recasting the typo­graphic material from Decker’s old in-house system to the French standard.[36] That was completed at the end of 1881.[37]

Close-up photo of seven punches from the Reichsdruckerei’s Tertia Psalter Gotisch (16 point). From a cabinet of steel typographic the Bundesdruckerei transferred to the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin. One of the first of the bespoke typefaces the Reichsdruckerei produced for itself, Psalter Gotisch is an “Old English”-style textura. The Bundesdruckerei cabinets also contain this typeface’s punches in the 12 and 14-point sizes. SDTB 1/2018/0342, drawer 24.

The Reichsdruckerei is primarily engaged in work on behalf of Reich authorities, the authorities of the German states, or municipal and other authorities and bodies. For other customers, it undertakes work that can only be carried out in Germany, requiring the Reichsdruckerei’s specific methods and resources – as an exception and with pre­conditions. That applies to projects that substantially promote the arts and sciences. The Reichsdruckerei’s typefoundry provides the majority of the typesetting material required for the department of letterpress printing. It does not sell matrices[38] and castings of its own fonts to the trade so as not to compete with private companies and to keep its forms’ uniqueness secret.

Unger – Trowitzsch

1791
On Easter 1791, the academic printer Johann Friedrich Unger established a typefoundry as part of his printing house.[39]

J. F. Unger (born 16 August 1753 in Berlin) was the son of the famous wood engraver Johann Georg Unger, who was born on 26 October 1715 in Goes near Pirna and died in Berlin on 15 August 1788. He was a printer by training, having apprenticed at Decker’s printing house. Unger also trained as a wood engraver, punchcutter, and typefounder.

In 1780, J. F. Unger established his own printing house; its excellent work became appreciated. As a publisher, he came into contact with the most renowned writers [of his day], including Schiller and Goethe. In 1794, he received a lease from the Prussian government for the calendar-publishing business.

For his typefoundry, Unger acquired sole rights to the prettiest typefaces from Didot in Paris for Germany.[40] Roman type had become fashionable among German writers at that time. But Unger also turned his interest to Fraktur and strove to make it as beautifully light as roman type.[41] Unger suggested that Firmin Didot [attempt to achieve exactly such a Fraktur design]. After that attempt failed, Unger cut a new Fraktur type himself, with the support of his assistant Johann Christoph Gubitz (died 1826).[42]

1793
In 1793, Unger published his Probe einer neuen Art deutscher Lettern, erfunden und in Stahl geschnitten von J. F. Unger.[43] In his time, those new typefaces did not enjoy wide distribution, but their beauty has recently been recognized, and they are now widely used both in their original form and in revivals.[44] Unger’s efforts to create quality musical notation types were also noteworthy.

Top of page 73 from Paul Renner’s Typographie als Kunst (München: Georg Müller, 1922). And yes, this is the same Paul Renner who designed Futura just a few years later. Renner had his first typography manual composed in multiple sizes of the Original-Ungerfraktur, as cast by the Julius Klinkhardt foundry in Leipzig. The larger of the two sizes above corresponds to Unger’s Grobe Cicero size. The smaller matches Unger’s Kleine Cicero. Berthold later sold these sizes as a big-on-the-body 12 point and 10 point, respectively.

1804, 1809, 1821
After being appointed as a senator of the Prussian Academy of Arts and professor of wood engraving, Unger died on 26 December 1804. His widow, Friederike Helene née von Rothen­burg, inherited the extensive business, which included letterpress printing, music printing,[45] typefounding, and book publishing. Due to the difficulties of the time, however, she could not keep it afloat.[46] After unsuccessfully petitioning the king to purchase the firm for the university, the business went bankrupt in 1809. A. W. Schade, a nephew of Unger’s, acquired the publishing venture. For the benefit of the creditors, the printing and typefounding facilities were managed by a printer named J. S. G. Otto as the Joh. Friedrich Unger printing house and typefoundry[47] until they were purchased by Trowitzsch & Sohn on 29 October 1821.

The Trowitzsch & Sohn printing house was established in Küstrin in 1711 and moved to Frankfurt an der Oder in 1815.[48] Karl Ferdinand Sigismund Trowitzsch (born on 6 August 1797 in Küstrin), the firm’s owner, established a Berlin branch of the business by taking over the Unger printing and type­founding operations. The new Berlin location of Trowitzsch & Sohn mainly dealt with calendar publishing.

1830
From Karl Trowitzsch’s death on 6 February 1830, Wilhelm Mütterlein – the previous managing director of the Berlin branch – managed the company until 1849.[49] Then, his son Gustav Mütterlin took up the management on behalf of Trowitzsch’s underage heirs.

1851
In January 1851, the business was handed over to the Trowitzsch children. Eugen Trowitzsch (born on 8 December 1826 in Frankfurt an der Oder) took over the management. On 1 August 1851, the printing house and typefoundry became the joint property of the brothers Karl and Eugen Trowitzsch. On 1 August 1852, the latter became the sole owner.

Under Eugen Trowitzsch, the typefoundry flourished. He acquired matrices for the best French and English typefaces, and the border-printing elements[50] he purchased as matrices from Lorrain & Deberny[51] in Paris also found many admirers in Germany.

1854
The foundry operated with four casting furnaces and five pivotal casting machines in 1854.[52]

1867
Eugen Trowitzsch died on 10 February 1867. Once again, Gustav Mütterlein managed the business as the heirs’ guardian. He continued to run it for them when they came of age.

1888, 1897, 1901
In the summer of 1888, Edmund Mangesldorf and Dr. Otto Freiherr von der Pfordten purchased Trowitzsch & Sohn. Mangesldorf, a bookseller from Leipzig, was then based in Munich; the Freiher von der Pfordten was a Privatdozent.[53] The latter resigned on 1 August 1892 to fully devote himself to poetry. He later became a professor at the University of Stras­bourg and died in Brussels in early March 1918. That left Edmund Mangelsdorf as Trowitzsch & Sohn’s sole owner after 1892. Under his leadership, the business mainly focused on publishing and printing, which it did with great success. Since Eugen Trowitzsch’s death, the typefoundry had increasingly limited itself to casting type for its own needs. Two big tasks still fell to it: Together with Ferd. Thein­hardt’s foundry, Trowitzsch & Sohn carried out the recasting of the Reichsdruckerei’s type.[54] It also recast its own printing house’s type according to the new standard system.[55] The typefoundry was then sold to the Rotter­dam­sche Letter­gieterij in Holland in 1897, from which it passed on to Johannes Enschedé en Zonen in Haarlem in 1901. That was how matrices of Unger’s Fraktur types came to Holland.[56]

The W. Drugulin printing house in Leipzig acquired two strikes of every matrix from each of the Unger-Fraktur types from Trowitzsch & Sohn around 1875. One set of these went to Julius Klinkhardt in Leipzig.[57] The D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt am Main acquired the other set in 1920.[58]

1919
Edmund Mangelsdorf died on 21 June 1919.

Gubitz

1824
An F. W. Gubitz typefoundry and cliché-making company was in operation by 1824.[59] The first issue of Gubitz’s Sammlung von Verzierungen in Abgüssen für die Buchdrucker-Presse was published that year.[60] Issues 2 through 8 were published by 1839. The ornaments were very popular in their time.

Cropped view of the title page from Sammlung von Verzierungen in Abgüssen für die Buch­drucker-Presse zu haben bei F. W. Gubitz, Professor der Holz­schneide­kunst an der Königl. Preuss. Akademie der Künste. Erstes Heft No. 1–474 (Berlin: Vereins-Buchhandlung, 1824). The tight-but-not-touching letters spelling Buchdrucker-Presse look to me like they were designs from the Unger foundry. According to Enschedé 1978 (note 1 below), pp. 505 and 460, they were cut in brass by Unger himself. It is easily conceivable, however, that F. W. Gubitz’s father could have cut some of them.

1854
The foundry operated with two casting furnaces and one pivotal caster in 1854.[61]

Friedrich Wilhelm Gubitz (born 27 February 1786 in Leipzig, died 5 June 1870 in Berlin) was the son of Unger’s colleague, the famous wood engraver who – after Unger – brought this art form back to a place of honor in Germany. He was also a writer and founded the Vereinsbuchhandlung in 1822.

Post Script: The Unger-Fraktur

Unger’s reformed Fraktur was a text typeface. He did not produce it in any “display” size. Ernst Crous provides the years when each size was finished:[62]

1. The very first attempt (Cicero/approximately 12 point): 1789
2. Firmin Didot’s Korpus size (10 p): circa 1791
3. Petit, first attempt (8 p): 1792/93
4. Petit (8 p): 1793
5. Bourgeois on Korpus (9 on 10p): 1793
6. Nonpareille (6 p): 1794
7. Kleine Cicero (small on body 12 p): 1795
8. Grobe Cicero (big on body 12 p): 1797
9. Perl (smaller than 6 p): 1798

Two discarded drafts for Unger’s reformed Fraktur. The top four lines were presumably cut by Unger in 1789. The six lines below that were cut by Unger, circa 1791. Gubitz may have assisted in some capacity. From Enschedé 1978 (note 11 below), p. 368.

Because Unger’s Fraktur was the basis for several twentieth-century revivals, I think that it would be helpful to differentiate between the various metal-type versions. Like the Walbaum fonts sold in the twentieth century, not all the Unger-Fraktur revivals’ characters were re-cut. I find this very important. In the case of Walbaum’s roman and italics, printers could buy fonts of type from H. Berthold AG that included forms cast from matrices that were direct descendants of those struck by Justus Erich Walbaum himself. Printers who installed Monotype machines used Walbaum fonts, which were the complete invention of the Monotype Type Drawing Office.

Unger’s 1793 specimen for his “new style of German letters” can be viewed online. A facsimile of his “second specimen of newly revised German printing type” from 1794 – published by Berthold in 1925 – has also been digitized. Trowitzsch & Sohn, which acquired his foundry in 1821, sold five sizes of this, called the Ungersche Schriften. Unger’s matrices – and perhaps some punches? – seem to have survived, by way of Enschedé, and are now at the Noord-Hollands Archief in Haarlem. It would be swell if someone in the Netherlands could go and have a look at them. For Unger’s Neue Deutsche Lettern, the archive’s database includes the following entries for matrices:[63]

1. 2488/1538: Strikes for Perl Fraktur; number 9 in the list above.
2. 2488/1539: Strikes and galvanos for Nonparel Fraktur No. 4; number 6 in the list above.
3. 2488/1540: Strikes for Petit Fraktur No. 5 (Erster Versuch); number 3 in the list above.
4. 2488/1541: Strikes Petit Fraktur; number 4 in the list above.
5. 2488/1542: Strikes and galvanos for Bourgeois Fraktur; number 5o in the list above .
6. 2488/1543: Strikes for the Corpus Fraktur from Firmin Didot; number 2 in the list above.
7. 2488/1544: Strikes and galvanos for Augustijn Fraktur (Erster Versuch); number 1 in the list above.
8. 2488/1545: No further details are provided in the database entry. Number 7 in the list above.
9. 2488/1546: No further details are provided in the database entry. Number 8 in the list above.

Bauer mentioned above that Trowitzsch & Sohn sold matrices of the Unger-Fraktur to the W. Drugulin and Julius Klinkhardt foundries in Leipzig. I have not been able to locate specimens of these fonts from either of them. Secondary sources from the beginning of the 20th century indicate that Klinkhardt expanded the Unger-Fraktur to include additional bold and light styles in 1907 and 1910, respectively.[64] According to FontsInUse.com, “Julius Nitsche added Unger-Initialen, a set of initials for one- and two-color printing, for Klinkhardt in 1908.”[65] Sources from D. Stempel AG and H. Berthold AG, which acquired the W. Drugulin and Julius Klinkhardt foundries after the First World War, respectively, indicate that each did have original Unger-Fraktur matrices.

Joh. Enschedé en Zonen printed the top four lines of the comparison above with the Unger foundry’s reformed Fraktur’s Bourgeois size. Scanned from Enschedé 1978 (note 11 below), p. 368. Below it are four lines of Berthold’s Original-Unger-Fraktur in 9 point, scanned from Original-Unger-Fraktur, Berthold-Heft Nr. 222. The letterforms look lighter than Enschedé’s but this is due to different paper surfaces. That also applies to Stempel’s Unger-Fraktur – the last three lines above. Its 9-pt size matches Berthold’s Orginal-Unger-Fraktur as well as Unger’s own types. Scanned from Qualitäts-Schiften für Qualitäts-Drucke (Frankfurt am Main: D. Stempel AG, n. d.), p. 106.

An inventory of Stempel’s matrices from Drugulin lists the Unger-Fraktur in sizes 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 20. Berthold’s first specimen for its Original-Unger-Fraktur revival claim’s that the typeface’s smaller sizes – 6, 8, 9, 10, 10g, 12, and 12g – were cast from original matrices that Berthold acquired from Klinkhardt. The sizes for Berthold’s Original-Unger-Fraktur from 14 to 48 point were new, but I suspect that Klinkhardt made these sometime before 1907. Drugulin’s four largest sizes cannot be from the 18th century; Stempel’s 10-point size seems to be Unger’s small-on-body Cicero design from 1795, but its 12-point size is not a match for Unger’s big-on-the-body Cicero. Berthold’s 12g size, on the other hand, does match Unger’s big-on-body Cicero. Since Berthold’s 10-point matches Unger’s small-on-the-body-Cicero, however, its small-on-the-body 12-point size may be a Klinkhardt addition. Stempel’s massive catalog from the late 1920s has a few pages showing its expanding Unger-Fraktur. The first page, showing the three smallest (and ostensibly “original” sizes) can be seen online. That catalog was published before Stempel added its bold weight in 1928.[66] Stempel manufactured Linotype matrices for its Unger-Fraktur weights, and a German Linotype brochure for those has been digitized. Berthold’s specimen also states that the Typograph line-casting machine’s Unger-Fraktur was based on Berthold’s fonts.

Comparison of the Unger foundry’s Corpus-sized reform Fraktur with the 10-point types from the truest Unger-Fraktur revivals. The middle section is Berthold’s Original-Unger-Fraktur. Stempel’s Unger-Fraktur is shown on the bottom. While Berthold’s and Stempel’s 6, 7, 8, and 9-point Unger-Fraktur types all seem match’s Unger’s exactly, their 10-point sizes must both be independent creations. The Unger foundry’s size of this type (top) was cut by Firmin Didot instead of Johann Friedrich Unger and Johann Christoph Gubitz and does not really match the rest of the range. Stempel’s 10-point size is smaller on the body than Berthold’s. Both of the types cannot come from the same matrices.

Three other German foundries’ marketing suggested that they had also acquired Unger-Fraktur matrices, although I am skeptical that was true. Before Berthold acquired Klinkhardt, the Böttger foundry in Leipzig had fonts of Original-Unger-Fraktur and accompanying initials. Perhaps additional investigation will indicate whether this foundry got its matrices from Klinkhardt. In 1918, bought Böttger, just like Klinkhardt. The Schriftguss foundry in Dresden sold an Original-Unger-Fraktur typeface only available in sizes between 6 and 12 point. A second typeface, the Unger-Neuschnitt-Fraktur – which also had a bold – had sizes ranging from 6 to 36 point. Otto Weisert in Stuttgart also had an Original-Unger-Fraktur typeface, though I do not know the source of its matrices, either.[67] The Norddeutsche Schriftgießerei’s Kabinett-Fraktur – billed as a recutting rather than a recasting of the Unger-Fraktur – was a latecomer to the party, appearing only in 1938.[68]

Above, the six largest sizes of Schriftguss AG’s Unger-Neuschnitt-Fraktur. This Dresden-based foundry also sold an Original-Unger-Fraktur (not pictured). From Kleiner Schriften Katalog (Dresden: Schriftguss A.-G. Schriftgießerei und Messinglinien-Fabrik vorm. Brüder Butter, n. d.), p. 19.

The Unger-Fraktur revival, in terms of actual use, seems to have been quite significant in Germany during the early 1920s. For instance, Paul Renner’s first book on typography was composed with the typeface. Aside from the Typograph and Linotype Unger-Frakturs, Intertype – another linecasting-machine manufacturer – also offered Unger-Fraktur (typeface no. 124). Sadly, though, I have no information about it. The typeface was also essentially remixed and reinterpreted. For instance, Emil Rudolf Weiß’s Weiß-Fraktur was a self-described Unger-inspired design.[69] Weiß first designed it as a private typeface for the Tempel-Verlag. The Bauersche Gießere published it for the general public.

Scan from the Weiß-Fraktur specimen (note 69 below), p. 74 (cropped). Although Weiß-Fraktur was an original type design from Emil Rudolf Weiß, it was strongly influenced by Unger’s reformed Fraktur. Its letterforms are rounder, with somewhat simplified skeletons, making them more like roman and italic type.

Monotype sold an Unger-Fraktur in regular and bold. According to the Effra Press and Typefoundry, Monotype introduced the regular weight – Series 205 – in 1925. Its revival must have been an attempt to cash in on the Unger-Fraktur revival that was already underway. Likely, a German customer requested its addition. A German foundry could have provided the design; it was only in 1935 that the German Founders’ Organization forbade its members to collaborate with the Corporation.[70] Monotype’s regular Unger-Fraktur weight was followed up by Series 277, a bold, in 1929. The Effra Press list notes that both were discontinued in 1972. At least some punches for the Monotype’s Unger-Fraktur survive at the Science Museum in London. The Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig likely has the Monotype Unger-Fraktur matrices from Eckehart-SchumacherGebler’s Offizin Haag-Drugulin, which closed in Dresden last year.

Notes

This post’s header images shows an 1783 portrait of Georg Jakob Decker (1732–1799) on the left and Johann Friedrich Unger (1753–1804) on the right. Decker’s portrait was painted by Anton Graff (1736–1813). Today it is at the Alte National­galerie in Berlin, where it was photographed by Andres Kilger. The museum shares it under a CC BY-NC-SA license. Unfortunately, I have less details for Unger’s portrait. I scanned a black-and-white print of it from Ernst Crous’s Die Schriftgießereien in Berlin von Thurneysser bis Unger (note 5 below). Crous noted only that the painting was in the possession of one Professor Staerk in Jena – probably this one.

1. Daniel Berkeley Updike, Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use vol. 1 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 1922), pp. 157–158.
2. ibid., p. 148.
3. Nikolaus Weichselbaumer, »Die Druckerfamilie Decker und die klassizistische Typographie in Berlin um 1800«, in Imprimatur N.F. XXV (2017), pp. 249–268.
4. Erst Crous, Fünfzig Jahre Reichsdruckerei 1879–1929 (Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1929), pp. 233–240. Reprinted as a supplement to Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik 68, issue 7 (July 1931).
5. Ernst Crous, Die Schriftgießereien in Berlin von Thurneysser bis Unger. Nach hand­schriftlichen und gedruckten Quellen dargestellt (Berlin: H. Berthold AG, Abteilung Privatdrucke, 1928).
6. For Unger’s denunciation of Johann Carl Ludwig Prillwitz’s Didot-style types, see Christina Killius, Die Antiqua-Fraktur Debatte um 1800 und ihre historische Herleitung (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1999), pp. 260–281. See also Crous 1928 (note 5 above), pp. 73–81.
7. Susanne Wehde, Typographische Kultur. Eine zeichentheoretische und kulturgeschichtliche Studie zur Typographie und ihrer Entwicklung (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2020), pp. 216–245.
8. Christopher Busch, Unger-Fraktur und literarische Form (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2019).
9. For a history of the printing house, see Das Haus Trowitzsch & Sohn in Berlin. Sein Ursprung und seine Geschichte von 1711 bis 1911 (Berlin: Trowitzsch & Sohn, 1911).
10. John A. Lane, Mathieu Lommen, and Johan de Zoete, Dutch typefounders’ specimens. From the Library of the KVB and other collections in the Amsterdam University Library, with histories of the firms represented (Amsterdam: De Buitenkant, 1998), pp. 281–283.
11. Charles Enschedé, Typefoundries in the Netherlands from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. A history based mainly on the collection of Joh. Enschedé en Zonen at Haarlem. An English translation with revisions and notes by Harry Carter and Netty Hoeflake. Edited by Lotte Hellinga (Haarlem: Stichting Museum Enschedé, 1978), pp. 366–409.
12. ibid., p. 368.
13. ibid., pp. 368–372 and 452. This was from Unger’s ca. 1798 Schriftproben der Didotschen und gewöhnlichen Lettern, welche in der Ungerschen Schriftgiesserei in Berlin für nebenstehenden Preise zu haben sind. In Enschedé 1978 (note 11 above), additional specimens of types from Unger’s foundry appear on pp. 373, 405, 407, 408, and 410.
14. Enschedé 1978 (note 11 above), pp. 375–379.
15. Johann Grynäus was also originally from Basel. However, he died before the time when Decker married his daughter.
16. Arnaud Dussarrat may be the same Frech printer as the Arnaud du Sarrat in Tomas Górny’s 2023 paper on “the international music trade in Halle in Leipzig c. 1700.”
17. Weichselbaumer 2017 (note 3 above), pp. 253–254 mentions that Decker first applied for permission to open a typefoundry in 1765, Frederick II refused his request. The king did relent two years later, however. The Berlin typefounder Johann Ludwig Zinck, who I discussed in my previous post, believed that this infringed on his privileges but he received no satisfaction; see Crous 1928 (note 5 above), p. 54
18. Crous 1928 (note 5 above), p. 63 confirms that this was the Fournier le jeune, author of the Manuel Typographique. Weichselbaumer 2017 (note 3 above), p. 254 notes that Decker visited Fournier “in the summer of 1767.” As Fournier died a year later, Decker’s timing proved fortunate as he was able to procure strikes of typefaces from Fournier for the new Berlin foundry. The initial plan for a Royal Typefoundry in Berlin, prepared at the start of Frederik II’ reign in 1741, included a broad range of faces from the then 20-year-old Fournier; see my previous post in this series.
19. Weichselbaumer 2017 (note 3 above), p. 252 states that this commission was printed at the palace in Berlin.
20. Weichselbaumer mentions 16 presses. ibid.
21. An approximate translation for this title would be “George Jakob Decker & Son, Royal Privy Court Printers.”
22. Franz Laurent Xavier Levrault (1762–1821) appears in one of the entries for Strasbourg in Bauer’s Chronik. As such, I shall address him as part of this project at a later date.
23. The entirety of Bauer’s entry for Hessenland reads: “The Hessenland typefoundry operated in Brandenburg an der Havel until 1813. Afterwards, the Decker Court Printing House in Berlin acquired it, along with its 6,000 matrices. Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig received some of the matrices for 325 Reichstaler.” See Friedrich Bauer, Chronik der Schriftgießereien in Deutschland und den deutschsprachigen Nachbarländern (Offenbach am Main: Verlag des Vereins Deutscher Schriftgießereien, 1928), p. 39.
24. You can find some basic information about Friedrich König and his press on the König & Bauer website.
25. After the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences’ printing operations closed in the 1890s, its typographic materials were transferred to the Reichsdruckerei. Some of the non-Latin punches from the Academy of Sciences kept at the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin must date back to Rudolf Ludwig Decker’s time.
26. In 1854, Johann Heinrich Meyer – publisher of the Journal für Buchdruckerkunst – printed an address book of Central European printing houses and typefoundries, etc. The book’s entries included details on the number of machines, etc. Bauer included these statistics whenever they were relevant to his chronicle’s entries; see Johann Heinrich Meyer (ed.), Adressbuch der Buchdruckereien von Mitteleuropa, der Stein-, Kupfer- und Stahlstichdruckereien, der Schrift- und Stereotypengiesser, xylographische Institute, Pressen- und Druckmaschinenbauer, Farbefabrikanten, sowie der mechanischen Papierfabriken in Deutschland (Braunschweig: Meyer, 1854).
27. The original German title was the Königliche Geheime Ober-Hofbuchdruckerei (R. v. Decker).
28. Fifteen castermen and twelve apprentices meant that, by the 1860s, the Decker foundry was no longer particularly large. While it had more employees than the Johann Christian Bauer’s foundry at the time of Bauer’s death in 67 (only 20), Schelter & Giesecke in Leipzig had 200 employees in 1869, and Flinsch in Frankfurt 220 in 1873; see Dan Reynolds, Schriftkünstler (diss. HBK Braunschweig, 2020), pp. 198–199.
29. The legislation, printed in the Reichsgesetzblatt, has been digitized and can be read here.
30. The Stoltze’s Palais, which the Decker operated out of from the 1790s until the 1870s, became the home for the German Foreign Office after the printing house moved out. The building that was at this address was destroyed during and after the Second World War. It was located on the westward side of Wilhelmstraße, somewhere between Behrenstraße and Vossstraße.
31. The equivalent purchasing power of these 1,780,000 marks in March 2023 would be €13,706,000, according to the Deutsche Bundesbank.
32. The minutes of the Reichstag session in which this legislation was passed have digitized. You can read the relevant portion beginning on the bottom right of this page.
33. Reichsdruckerei translates literally into Imperial Printing House.
34. This was the architect Carl Büsse, who has a Wikipedia page.
35. That facility was located with the current German federal printing house (Bundesdruckerei) is today. You can find it easily on Google Maps or simply ride Berlin’s M29 Bus from Friedrichstraße to the Oranienstraße in Kreuzberg.
36. Just as Decker and the Reichsdruckerei had an in-house typefoundry, so did the Trowitzsch & Sohn printing house. Ferd. Theinhardt’s foundry, on the other hand, was independent of any single printer.
37. Let’s think about this for a minute. Combining the Decker printing house and the Prussian State Printing Office into one imperial printing house meant the type in the new printing house’s cases did not match. Each firm followed different standards for typographical measurement and their types’ height-to-paper. In the early 1870s, the German printing industry adopted the Didot point from France. Nevertheless, there was some dispute about a point’s exact millimeter value. Hermann Berthold standardized this at 0.376 mm in 1878. The Reichsdruckerei had to recast all its types. To do that as quickly as possible, they hired two other foundries to help. All three foundries were good-sized operations, but the endeavor still took almost two years!
38. While it was generally true that the Reichsdruckerei did not distribute copies of its matrices to commercial typefoundries, there was at least one exception. Georg Schiller’s Neudeutsch typeface, designed and cut inside the Reichsdruckerei, was made commercially available through the J. John Söhne and C. F. Rühl typefoundries at the beginning of the twentieth century.
39. The term “academic printer” refers to the license Unger had received in 1788, giving him a monopoly on the printing and publishing of works from the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
40. Some authors are cagey about whether Unger purchased matrices from Firmin Didot in Paris or simply, with a license from Didot, cut Didot-style types. In Crous 1928 (note 5 above), pp. 72–73, however, we can read exactly which typefaces Unger had matrices from Didot, with which he had sole rights to cast from in Germany between 1790 and 1805. Enschedé notes which larger-sized types were cut at Unger’s in brass to match the smaller Didot types; see Enschedé 1978 (note 11 above), pp. 405–406 and 460.
41. From Bauer’s description, one gets the impression that Unger’s foundry consisted of Didot-style roman and italic types, as well as the reformed Fraktur that Unger created with Didot and Gubitz. That was not the case. He had a number of other types, especially Fraktur and Schwabachers; see Enschedé 1978 (note 11 above), pp. 368–372. Enschedé believed that many of his matrices were strikes from the Luther foundry in Frankfurt.
42. Bauer gave 1828 as the year of Gubitz’s death, which was two years too late. He did not provide Gubitz’s year of birth, which was 1754.
43. This specimen has been digitized by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
44. See this article’s post script for a list of the Unger-Fraktur revivals in metal type.
45. I was hoping that Bauer’s use of the the word Notendruckerei implied intaglio printing but based on Crous 1928 (note 5 above), pp. 101–105, it must have been cast fonts of musical notation printed via letterpress.
46. The War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806–1807 was disastrous for Prussia. It had allied with Saxony, as well as with Britain, Russia, and Sweden to halt Napoleon and the French Empire. Instead, Napoleon defeated Prussia and Saxony at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt and then occupied Berlin. Prussia lost about a third of its territory in 1807, although it regained much ground in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.
47. The proper company name in German was the Joh. Friedrich Ungersche Buchdruckerei und Schriftgießerei.
48. This sentence contains a bit of an anachronism. The printing house established at Küstrin in 1711 was done so by Gottfried Heinichen. Carl Gottlob Trowitzsch took it over in 1780. When he purchased the Frankfurt an der Oder printing house of Christian Ludwig Apitz in 1815 and moved his business there, the company name changed to Trowitzsch & Sohn. It had only had that name for about six years when it bought the Unger business in 1821.
49. Charles Enschedé, probably a more reliable source, gives him a fuller name: Friedrich Wilhelm Mütterlein. See Enschedé 1978 (note 11 above), p. 367.
50. In German: Einfassungen.
51. I assume that Bauer was referring to the Laurent et Deberny foundry in Paris.
52. Meyer 1858 (note 26 above).
53. Dear reader, please don’t make me translate Privatdozent into English! A Privatdozent is an academic within the German University system who has attained an intermediary role without any sort of equivalent in the English or North American university systems.
54. See the third paragraph under “1879” in this article’s Decker – Reichsdruckerei section.
55. All of the printing house’s type would have been recast to have the new German height-to-paper size of 62 ⅔ point. Bodies would also now have to be delineated in exact increments within the Didot point system.
56. The account about Unger’s reformed Fraktur types coming to Holland, as well as the next paragraph in this entry, do not appear in the first edition of Bauer’s Chronik der deutschen Schriftgießereien (1914), as the revival of the Unger-Fraktur had not yet reached the heights it would in the 1920s.
57. While I will take it on faith that Bauer is correct about Drugulin’s 1875 strike purchase, I am doubtful about Drugulin’s having sold its duplicate sets to Julius Klinkhardt right away. I have not yet been able to locate a specimen of the Unger-Fraktur in a 19th century specimen. It is neither in Klinkhardt’s 1883 nor in its 1892 catalog, for instance.
58. Bauer’s explanation of Stempel’s Unger-Fraktur matrices is not clear-cut. The D. Stempel AG foundry acquired W. Drugulin’s entire typefoundry in 1919 – and with it, of course, one set of the Unger-Fraktur matrices.
59. The first edition of Bauer’s Chronik der deutschen Schriftgießereien (1914) had no account for Gubitz.
60. This was a collection of cast ornaments for use in letterpress printing. All eight issues of these specimen have been digitized by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.
61. Meyer 1858 (note 26 above).
62. Crous 1928 (note 5 above), Tafel 8.
63. All nine – with the same Enschedé product numbers – can be seen on Enschedé 1978 (note 11 above), p. 373.
64. Philipp Bertheau (ed.), Buchdruckschriften im 20. Jahrhundert. Atlas zur Geschichte der Schrift, ausgewählt und kommentiert von Philipp Bertheau unter Mitarbeit von Eva Hanebutt-Benz und Hans Reichardt (Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, 1995), p. 143.
65. “Unger-Fraktur” on FontsInUse.com, last accessed on 6 January 2024. The sources for this statement come from the Klingspor Museum and Dieter Steffmann.
66. Bertheau 1995 (note 64 above), p. 143.
67. ibid. dates Schriftguss AG’s Unger-Fraktur typefaces to 1928 and Otto Weisert’s to 1929.
68. ibid. gives the year for this typeface’s publication and mentions that it also had an accompanying bold weight. The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has digitized a Norddeutsche Schriftgießerei specimen for Kabinett-Fraktur, but it does not include a bold.
69. The Bauersche Gießerei’s 1913 specimen for Weiß-Antiqua was dedicated to Johann Friedrich Unger; see Weiß-Fraktur. Die Schrift des Tempel-Verlags (Frankfurt am Main: Bausche Gießerei, 1913), n. p.
70. Leonie Tafelmaier, »Der Verein der Schriftgießereien Offenbach am Main (1903–1972)« in Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 72 (Mainz: Gutenberg-Gesellschaft, 1997), pp. 189–205, here p. 199.

The post Unger versus Decker appeared first on TypeOff..

Bauer’s chronicle is just over 200 pages long. With Berlin, which begins on page 11, we arrive at the first of the “great” typefounding cities. Berlin’s initial foundry opened in the sixteenth century, although the city wouldn’t catch up to Frankfurt am Main or Leipzig for several centuries more. Commercial fonts have not been cast in Berlin since the late 1970s but the city continues to be a global center of type design today. Just as with Augsburg, Bauer’s entries for the Berlin foundries addressed in this post are much longer than in the first edition of his chronicle, Chronik der deutschen Schrift­gieß­ereien (1914). As I mention in the notes at the bottom of this post, he may have received that additional information on Berlin foundries from Ernst Crous during the mid-1920s.[1]

This post is essentially limited to the first two Berlin foundries in Bauer’s chronological listing: The in-house type­foundry at Leonhard Thurneysser’s late-sixteenth-century printing house and an erstwhile royal typefoundry established during the 1740s according to the wishes of Prussia’s fabled King Frederick II. Privatized rather quickly, the former Prussian state foundry would eventually pass to the H Berthold AG at the end of the First World War. The next post in my series may be more exciting; it will tackle the Decker and Unger foundries. The latter foundry was established by the francophile Johann Friedrich Unger, not by the late Gerard Unger (1942–2018; also a francophile).

Berlin

Thurneysser

The first Berlin typefounder[2] was the much-cited alchemist Leonhard Thurneysser zum Thurn.[3] Born in Basel on 6 August 1530, he was initially a goldsmith before turning to natural sciences, chemistry, and metallurgy. He made a name for himself through miraculous medical cures on adventurous journeys that took him far beyond Europe. In 1568, he returned to Germany, and two years later, he had the Eichorn printing house in Frankfurt an der Oder produce a large-volume work with many woodcuts and copperplate engravings.[4] In 1571, Elector John George brought Thurneysser to Berlin to be his physician.[5]

1574
Here, in 1574, Thurneysser set up a printing office in the “Graues Kloster,”[6] which he equipped not only with German and roman types but also with many oriental ones. He also added a typefoundry [to his office]. Thurneysser is said to have intermittently employed over two hundred workers in his house.[7] Before setting up his foundry, he obtained types from Frank­furt am Main and Nuremberg, as well as from the Wittenbergers Zacharias Lehmann,[8] Engelbert Krechting’s widow,[9] and Friedrich Berwaldt.[10]

Photograph of the ruins of the abbey church from Berlin’s Graues Kloster, taken in 2012 from Berlin’s television tower. Thurneysser’s Berlin-based business ventures were housed in the former-monastic buildings on the abbey grounds. Wikimedia Commons.

1576
Thurneysser’s own typefoundry began operating around 1576. Its primary concern was cutting and casting oriental types.[11]

1577
In 1577, Thurneysser sold the business for 1,100 thalers to Michael Hentzke, his composition foreman. Hentzke, who had been born in Bürgel near Jena, died in 1580. He left the business to his widow, who married the printer Nikolaus Voltz in 1582. Voltz, born in Erfurt in 1551, continued to run the [Thurneysser/Hentzke] business. At this time, the typefounder Veit Bretschneider was responsible [for the foundry’s] casting, while the Berlin goldsmith Andreas Hindenberg cut the type.[12]

A kind of type specimen (six sheets A to F) was published in 1583 with the title Tabula Quar­undam Syllabarum … omnia per Leonhardum Thurneysserum zum Thurn … in lucem edita … Gedruckt zu Berlin durch Nicolaum Voltzen. Anno 1583.[13]

Thurneysser still had certain shares and supervisory rights in the printing house until 1583, then he began a restless life again and died in a monastery at Cologne in 1596.

Sample showing seven scripts (including the Latin script in multiple typefaces) used by Thurneysser on his press. This isn’t the “specimen” that Bauer mentioned above, but it is a more-specimen like showing of the press’s types for other scripts. Image from Megalē Chymia, Vel Magna Alchymia, printed by Thurneysser’s successor Nikolaus Voltz at Berlin in 1583. Digitized by Google Books from a copy in the Austrian National Library at Vienna.

1593
In the second half of 1593, Voltz moved the business to Frankfurt an der Oder, where he died in 1619. Where the typefoundry remained is not known. The printing house passed to Voltz’s son-in-law Michael Koch, who was born in 1577 at Pegau and died in 1645. Koch’s son Nikolaus (born 1611, died 1653) was appointed university printer.

Königliche Schriftgießerei (Schmidt) – J. G. Francke – Tech

At the instigation of Frederick the Great,[14] a typefoundry was established up in Berlin in 1742. This was to be based on the model of the royal printing house in Paris and equipped with punches, matrices, and moulds. C. F. Simon, printer to the Archbishop of Paris,[15] had to prepare a design for a Royal Prussian printing office. A renowned punchcutter from The Hague, Johann Michael Schmidt, was entrusted with its management. However, unexpected wars and Schmidt’s death in 1750 brought the firm to a standstill.[16] So reads the account of Fournier le jeune in the preface to his Manuel Typographique 1766.[17]

The Parisian printer Claudius Franz Simon[18] presented above-mentioned plans to King Frederick II in 1741 in the form of a printed and magnificently bound large folio volume. Not only did it foresee for the establishment of a typefoundry but also a printing office with 12 presses. The rejection of this outline must have occurred not only because it went far beyond the king’s intentions but also because Simon consistently demanded prices double or triple the costs usual  at the time. It has been recalculated that, out of a total estimate of 370,000 livres, about 150,000 livres were earmarked for pocket money. This exorbitant project, which Gottsched[19] reprinted in Bücher­saal der schönen Wissenschaften in 1746,[20] seems to have been ignored by Frederick II. He consigned the folio to Privy Councilor Jordan,[21] who gifted it to a salesman. Later, it came into the possession of the well-known Leipzig printer J. G. I. Breitkopf.[23] Since his library it was auctioned off in 1795, the folio’s location is now unknown.[24]

This is quite a stylistic jump from the previous image. Above, I’ve reproduced the title page of Simon-Pierre Fournier’s 1742 specimen, the Modéles des caractères de l’imprimerie. Frederick II could have had Fournier-style typefaces in the early 1740s, had the War of the Austrian Succession not gotten in the way. Typefoundries established in Berlin a few decades later did receive Parisian types, particularly from Joseph Gillé and the Didots, but you will have to wait for my next post to read about that. Image from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, digitized here.

1740, 1742
The idea to found a royal typefoundry actually came in 1740 from the typefounder Johann Wenzel Hablitzl, who had worked as a journeyman in Halle for ten years and wanted to become self-employed.[25] On 13 August 1740, he requested that the king purchase the bankrupt typefoundry of Johann Barthold Kirchner’s heirs in Braunschweig and entrust him with its operations in Königsberg. The foundry was acquired on 16 August 1742 for 600 Reichsthaler. However, it was first brought to Berlin, where the typefounder Johann Michael Schmidt, appointed from The Hague, would divide it into two parts. One would form the basis of a royal typefoundry to be founded in Berlin, while the other would be entrusted to Hablitzl in Königsberg.[26] The Berlin portion was supplemented by Schmidt’s own punches and matrices obtained abroad (e.g., Frankfurt am Main and Wittenberg). Frederick II tried to promote the business, among other ways, by instructing his country’s printers on 19 January 1747 to only obtain punches, matrices, and types from his Berlin typefoundry and assured them of their respective freedom from excise taxes, clearance fees, and import duties. The foundry worked well, albeit on a small scale, but after Schmidt died on 20 June 1750, it fell into disrepair under the management of his son Johann Schmidt and closed in 1752.

Johann Michael Schmidt had trained as a punchcutter and typefounder in the Luther typefoundry at Frankfurt am Main and also cut punches for Wetstein in Amsterdam. In 1728 and 1729, he was in The Hague, where he cut dies for Uytwerf & Alberts and set up a foundry. He is said to have been in Berlin for some time.[27] It is not known when he returned to The Hague, but what is certain is that he was called to Berlin with his son by Frederick the Great in 1742 and died there in 1750.[28]

After he left Berlin in 1752, Johann Schmidt spent ten year working for Breitkopf in Leipzig,[29] then for seven for Cotta in Stuttgart before arriving at the Luther foundry in Frankfurt am Main as a punchcutter. The he established a foundry in Rotterdam that issued specimens in 1780 but folded soon afterwards.[30]

1752
On 27 August 1752, Frederick II allocated the inventory of the royal typefoundry “to the punchcutter and typefounder Johann Ludwig Zinck, who had settled here from Wittenberg in Saxony, for 300 thalers [with the rights for his heirs to inherit ownership].”[31] Zinck (born 17 July 1728), was the son of the Wittenberg type­founder Christian Zinck.[32] He brought the foundry back on track, casting not just for Berlin printers but also for those further afield. Because of his unsuccessful attempt to set up a printing house, he [began neglecting the] foundry. When he died in 1770, it had declined greatly.

1770, 1810, 1825, 1872[33]
Zinck’s sister, who inherited the foundry from him, transferred it to her husband, the punchcutter and typefounder Johann Gottlob Franck. The King confirmed his ownership on 13 September 1770. He managed to improve [the foundry]. In 1790, he worked with nine journey­men and boasted of the best letters in Germany.[34] He died aged 68 on 16 April 1810 as Court typefounder. His second wife and his son Gottlob Francke (born 14 June 1786) were his heirs. The latter published a specimen in 1825 that showed a rich collection of good typefaces.[35] The foundry, which operated with five furnaces in 1854, was passed down through the family to the next generation before being sold in 1872 to the A. W. Kafemann printing house in Danzig. There, it continued for 30 years under the name J. G. Francke Nachfolger.[36]

Two approximately 14-point typefaces in the Didot style from Francke’s 1825 specimen. The text is from Christoph Martin Wieland’s 1766/67 novel Geschichte des Agathon. Digitized by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kultur­besitz. The image in this post’s header is also from that specimen.

1912, 1917
In 1912, the J. G. Francke Nachfolger typefoundry returned to Berlin after the Otto Tech type­foundry purchased it and merged both operations. In turn, Emil Gursch and H. Berthold AG took that over in 1917.[37] Later in the same year, the Emil Gursch foundry was acquired by H. Berthold AG, making it the ultimate successor of the first Prussian state foundry.

Halle – Kanter

1750
In 1750, the Christian Wilhelm Halle type­foundry in Berlin was sold to Alexander Kanter in Königsberg “for more than 300 Reichstaler.” It is not clear when this foundry was founded and whether Halle is the Berlin type founder who appears in Berlin files in 1730 and 1740 without being named.[38]

Notes

1. Ernst Crous, Die Schriftgießereien in Berlin von Thurneysser bis Unger. Nach hand­schriftlichen und gedruckten Quellen dargestellt (Berlin: H. Berthold AG, Abteilung Privatdrucke, 1928).
2. Bauer’s entry for Thurneysser in the 1928 edition of his book is about three times the length of the first edition’s. Since he did not go into state archives to research himself, Crous’s histories of Berlin printing and typefounding may have been his sources for the additions. For instance, Bauer may have read August Potthast’s Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst zu Berlin im Umriss, edited by Ernst Crous (Berlin: Verein Berliner Buchdruckerei-Besitzer, 1926), or the book mentioned in previous note. Although published in 1928 – the same year as Bauer’s expanded second edition – the Thurneysser section in that book had already been completed in 1922 (p. xi). Alternatively, Bauer may have taken his basic biographical information on Thurneysser from other secondary sources. His language is similar to that used in Rudolf Schmidt’s entry on Thurneysser for Deutsche Buchhändler, Deutsche Buchdrucker. Beiträge zu einer Firmen­geschichte des deutschen Buch­gewerbes 5 (1908), pp. 948–950. Schmidt’s source for the information he cited was probably the Archiv für Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels.
3. The most-recent book on Thurneysser is Gabriele Spitzer’s …und die Spree führt Gold. Leonhard Thurneysser zum Thurn. Asologe – Alchemist – Arzt und Drucker im Berlin des 16. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 1996). His basic biographical details can be found in German from Urs Leo Ganten­bein’s »Thurneisser zum Thurn, Leonhard« in Neue Deutsche Biographie 26 (2016), pp. 232–234 [online version]. The English-language Wikipedia entry seems quite OK, too.
4. This was Thurneysser’s Προκατάληψις Oder Praeoccupatio, Durch zwölff verscheidenlicher Tractaten, gemachter Harm Proben, printed by Johan Eichorn in 1571, which Google Books has digitized. A year later, Eichorn printed a second Thurneysser book, Pison. 1: Das erst Theil Von kalten, warmen, minerischen und metallischen Wassern, sampt der Vergleichunge der Plantarum und Erdgewechsen, digitized here; see Spitzer 1996, p. 20 (note 3 above).
5. John George (1525–1598) was Elector of Brandenburg from 1571 until his death.
6. This was a Franciscan monastery that closed once the Reformation came to Berlin. Ruins of the monastery’s church building still stand in Berlin, not far from Alexanderplatz.
7. Regarding the “over two hundred workers in his house,” Bauer’s text is misleading. Some texts immediately preceding Bauer’s were even worse. For instance, Schmidt 1908 (note 2 above) states that “the importance of his printing house is evident from the fact that, at its peak, it sustained over 200 workers.” That is absolutely preposterous and would mean that Thurneysser’s printing house would have been the largest in the world. Plantin’s press, by comparison, was a gigantic one for the age – and he “only” had 80 employees. Thurneysser had about 200 people in his household. That included family members, servants, and the employees from all his business ventures; see Spitzer 1996, p. 23 (note 3 above). The number of workers in his printing press must have been much fewer than at Plantin’s. In Thurneysser’s time, Berlin may have only had 10,00 residents. Even by the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the number of Berlin residents had risen more than ten-fold, its printing houses had nowhere near 200 employees. In 1805, Berlin’s then-largest printing house was Deckers’s, and that only employed “89 workers, including nine in its typefoundry;” see Nikolaus Weichselbaumer, »Die Druckerfamilie Decker und die klassizistische Typographie in Berlin um 1800« in Imprimatur. Ein Jahrbuch für Bücherfreunde. Neue Folge XXV (München: Gesellschaft der Bibliophilen, 2017) pp. 249–268, here p. 253.
8. Zacharias Lehmann was a printer in Wittenberg, at least from 1575 onward.
9. Her name was Anastasia Krechting; see Crous 1928 p. 10 (note 1 above). Anastasia and Engelbert Krechting’s last name was also spelled “Kreffting.” Eneglbert Krechting/Kreffting comes up in Bauer’s section on Wittenberg. He worked as a typefounder there from 1570 until he died in 1573; see Daniel Berger and Sophia Linda Stieme, »Die Wittenberger Lettern­funde aus der Bürgermeisterstraße 5. Eine typographische, historische und material­kundliche Betrachtung« in Harald Müller (ed.), Glas, Steinzeug und Bleilettern aus Wittenberg (Halle: Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte, 2014), pp. 267–364, here p. 336. The article can be accessed online at Research Gate.
10. Friedrich Bärwalde was another Wittenberg typefounder. He died in 1589; ibid.
11. Crous 1928 p. 17 (note 1 above) lists these. Here is my shaky translation: “Greek, Latin, German [and French …], Archaic Hebrew, Hebrew, Chaldean, Abyssinian, Ethiopian, Syriac, Phoenician, Arabic, Punic, Armenian, Dalmatian or Glagolitic, Russian or Muscovite, Jakobitisch [no idea! Syriac is already mentioned twice] or Georgian, Ancient Egyptian [he probably meant Coptic], Indic [Sanskrit?], Persian, Median, Turkish, Tatar, and Old Syriac.”
12. In Bauer’s 1914 your edition, he wrote that “Hindenburg cut […] the punches for some Hebrew and other types.” These specifics are missing in the 1928 edition, although this might explain the word “oriental,” mentioned two times above.
13. The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has digitized its copy of this. As Bauer suggests, is not a type specimen in the sense we understand them today. To illustrate the Thurneysser foundry’s types, Crous 1928 (note 1 above) used part of a page from Thurneysser’s 1583 Megalē Chymia instead. It looks more like a specimen in the sense of Ratdolt’s.
14. This is King Frederick II (Friedrich II.), called “the Great.” Born in 1712, he reigned as King in Prussia from 1740 until his death in 1786.
15. The Archbishop of Paris at this time was Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc (1655–1746, in office 1729–1746).
16. I assume this refers to the War of the Austrian Succession and the conflicts within it instigated by Frederick the Great: the First and Second Silesian Wars.
17. Fournier’s account of this, in Harry Carter’s translations, reads that “the King of Prussia, wishing to establish a Royal Typography upon the model of the that of the King of France, gave orders for the punches, matrices, and moulds for the necessary foundry to be sought in Paris, as a basis for this establishment. M. Simon, Printer to My Lord the Archbishop, consulted upon this project, wrote and printed in 1741, a Proposal for the Setting up of a Royal Printing-House at Berlin, which was sent to the King with the complete specimen of my letters, destined for the formation of this Foundry. But this project not being realized, the King fetched to Berlin a letter-cutter of the town of Hague, named Johann Michael Schmidt, with orders to build up a Royal Foundry; but the supervening wars and the death of this letter-cutter in 1750 have suspended the establishment.” See Pierre-Simon Fournier le jeune, The Manuel Typo­graph­ique of Pierre-Simon Fournier le jeune. Together with Fournier on Type­founding, an English Translation of the Text by Harry Carter in Facsimile. With an Introduction and Notes by James Mosley (Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, 1995) vol. 2, pp. xxxiii–xxxiv and vol. 3, p. 270.
18. His name was Claude-François Simon.
19. Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700–1766).
20. This has been digitized here see also the discussion on the matter earlier in the same issue of the journal.
21. This must by Charles Étienne Jordan (1700–1745), who Frederick II named as one of his privy councilors after his accession in 1740.
22. Breitkopf was one of the leading typefounders in Germany during the second half of the eighteenth century. If you can’t wait until I get to Bauer’s entry for him in the chronicle’s Leipzig section, see my translation of his 1777 essay on Enschedé’s 1768 specimen, with an introduction and notes, for details.
23. Three copies of the Projet de l’établissement d’une imprimerie royale à Berlin are at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. According to James Mosley’s notes to Harry Carter’s translation of Fournier’s Manuel Typographique, the copy of Fournier’s Modèles that Breitkopf received along with Simon’s folio is at the Kungliga Biblioeket in Stockholm; see Fournier vol. 3 p. *367 (note 17 above).
24. Hablitzl had a fascinating biography. I’m putting the cart before the house but he ran a foundry in Königsberg during the Seven Year War. After the Russian Army took the city, he switched sides and moved his foundry to Riga and later Moscow. Nikolaus Weichselbaumer gave a lecture on Hablitzl at the Leipziger Typotage in 2022. Video of his presentation is not online Perhaps it will be posted by the time I get to Königsberg?
25. Königsberg was located in East Prussia. Today, it is known as Kaliningrad, part of a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania.
26. Bauer continued the story of Hablitzl’s typefoundry in his entry for Königsberg’s foundries. For more detail than he offers, see Ernst Crous, Die Schriftgießereien in Königsberg unter Friedrich dem Großen 1740 bis 1766. Nach archivarischen Quellen dargestellt (Berlin: H. Berthold AG, Abteilung Privatdrucke, 1926) pp. 1–32.
27. Schmidt’s whereabouts for the duration between 1729 and 1742 are not known. Crous 1928 pp. 12 and 26 (note 1 above) addresses that King Frederick William I summoned him to Prussia in 1729. City statistics for 1730 also note a typefounder resident in Berlin. However, Schmidt seems to have returned to The Hague, wherefrom King Frederick II summoned him in 1742.
28. Just as with his entry on Thurneysser, Bauer’s entry for this typefoundry was considerably expanded in his 1928 edition. I suspect that he must have had advance information from Crous’s book of the same year.
29. According to Crous 1928 p. 32 (note 1 above), he cut the first punches for Breitkopf’s musical notation types. Finished in 1755, these slightly predate the musical notation types from Fournier and Fleischmann’s for Enschedé.
30. I cannot find these in John A. Lane, Mathieu Lommen and Johan de Zoete, Johan (des.), Dutch typefounders’ specimens – From the Library of the KVB and other collections in the Amsterdam University Library, with histories of the firms represented (Amsterdam: De Buitenkant, 1998).
31. Bauer’s text reads erb- und eigentümlich although the actually deed, cited by Crous 1928 p. 43 (note 1 above), only contains the word »eigenthümlich«. However, the right of Zinck’s heirs to inherit was mentioned elsewhere. As Crous noted [p. 45], this represented a privatization of the state foundry.
32. Johann Ludwig Zinck was also the brother of Christian Gottlob Zinck, briefly mentioned in Bauer’s Augsburg entries.
33. 112 years in just a single-paragraph entry is crazy, right?
34. Crous 1928 p. 47 (note 1 above) states that his customers included not only printers in Prussia, but also the he “delivered German and French [style types to] Sweden, Poland, Hamburg, Altona, etc.”
35. The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has a copy of this specimen, which was digitized as part of the big Berlin type specimen digitization project of 2021/22. The types in the specimen that appear uncannily similar to Didot’s are apparently “copies” cut by Johann Gottlob Frank. See Eckehart SchumacherGebler, »Der Einfluß Bodonis und anderer ausländischer Schriftschneider auf die Entstehung klassizistischer Druckschriften in Deutschland« in Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 68 (Mainz: Gutenberg-Gesellschaft e. V., 1993), pp. 173–209, here pp. 182–183.
36. Nachfolger is the German word for “successors,” as in: J. G. Francke’s Successors.
37. The Berlin-based typefoundries Otto Tech, Emil Gursch, and H. Berthold AG will all be addressed, in turn, by this series soon.
38. Bauer did not include this entry in the chronicle’s first edition. His suggestion that Christian Wilhelm Halle was the typefounder mentioned as being present in Berlin represents an alternative possibility, should Johann Michael Schmidt have remained in The Hague or quickly returned after a 1729 visit; see note 27 above.

The post Thurneysser and the later privatization of Berlin’s first state-owned typefoundry appeared first on TypeOff..

Like Augsburg, Basel was an early center of printing. This post is the third entry in my ongoing Friedrich Bauer project. It does not do justice to Basel’s complete typefounding history or the history of the Haas Type Foundry. For instance, Albert Bruckner’s large-format book thoroughly addressed the history of Swiss punch­cutters and typefounders in 1943.[2] Unsurprisingly, as the book was published by Haas, 69 pages are devoted to that foundry’s history alone. 1943 was still ten years before Haas’s release of Normal-Grotesk and about a decade and a half before the design and release of Neue Haas-Grotesk and Helvetica, arguably the most famous typeface to have debuted with a Basel foundry.

For more recent summaries of Haas’s history than what you’ll find here, see Gustaf Adolf Wanner’s account from 1979[3] and Brigitte Schuster’s pair of articles in Footnotes.[4] As of this post’s publication, the most recent deep dive into an era of Haas’s history has come from Typotheque, accompanying Nikola Djurek’s revival of Max Miedinger’s lesser-known typefaces.

All text below – until the notes at the bottom of this post – are my translation of Bauer’s Basel entries.

Basel

[Introduction]

Several printers were already active in Basel during the 15th century. Excerpts from documents prove that they also cast type for their own use. Sometimes, they also did so for colleagues who were friends. Here are a few examples.

1472
On 12 March 1472, Bernhard Richel from Ehen­weiler, who printed in Basel from 1472 until 1482, confiscated the estate of the [recently deceased] seal engraver Jost Burnhart – but he wanted to deduct “several letters” that the seal engraver made for him [from the two Guilders Burnhart had owned him].[5] So Burnhart had been Richel’s punchcutter. We can conclude that Richel’s son-in-law Nikolas Kessler (1471–1519) continued the foundry because, in 1508, Kessler purchased tin from Martin Leubel in Leipzig for 400 guilders.[6]

1476
In 1476, the letter cutter Hans Frank sued Johann Schilling from Winternheim. The latter was in Basel between 1472 and 1477. The suit was for payment for letters engraved for “Meister Hannß Winterheimer.”

Michael Wenßler, who had worked extensively and successfully in Basel since 1472, got into debt in 1490 and had to sell his entire business to Jakob Steinacher for 253 guilders. That included “matrices, tools, and all other things belonging to a printing house,” as well as a typefoundry.

1477
Johann von Amerbach ([in Basel from] 1477–1513) had a type foundry in his printing house, which cast not only for his own needs but also for other printers. Among others, he supplied the Stras­bourg printer Adolf Rusch (died 1489) – known as “the printer of the R-Bizarre”[7] – with the types needed to print a “large Bible” for Anton Koberger in Nuremberg.[8]

1500
Peter Kreyß, a “Geschrifftschneider” [punch­cutter], purchased a house on 19 December 1500 from Hans Feigerwinter for 30 guilders.

1519
It is known that the famous Basel printer Johann Froben (born 1460, died 1527),[9] who had his typefaces cast in-house, delivered type to Melchior Lotter. The latter printer, active in Leipzig from 1500 until 1542, established a branch office at Wittenberg in 1519.[10]

1534
Among the first typefounders in Basel, we also find Peter Schöffer the Younger[11] – the son of Gutenberg’s assistant, Peter Schöffer.[12] He had owned a printing press in Mainz since 1513 alongside his older brother Johann Schöffer and also printed in Worms from 1518 to 1529. Then he went to Basel, where he worked under Hieronymus Froben (born 1501, died 1563) as a punchcutter and typefounder.[13] When Johannes Oporinus set up a printing shop with Thomas Platter, Balthasar Ruch (Lasius), and Rupprecht Winter around 1534, Peter Schöffer the Younger cast its types. After that printing house’s dissolution, Platter founded his own, for which Peter Schöffer the Younger again supplied matrices and typefaces.

Thomas Platter (born 17 February 1499, died 26 January 1583) testifies to this in his auto­biography, the manuscript of which is in the University Library in Basel,[14] in the following way: “At that time there was a fine artist in printing, Peter Schäffer [sic!], from the family who invented printing in Mainz. He apparently had all kinds of typefaces and punches, [and] he gave me the strikes, he gave them to me for a ring[15] of money, some of which he justified for me and cast for me; some were cast by Master Martin,[16] many from a man named Utz [the] punchcutter,[17] and then I wanted to do something with all those typefaces and presses. So there were several gentlemen who commissioned me to print, including Messers Wattenschne,[18] Frobenius,[19] Episcopius,[20] Hervagius,[21] [and] Michaell Isengrimius.[22]”

In “family news,” an addendum to his biography, Thomas Platter confirms his information about Peter Schöffer.

As in the cases mentioned above, typefounding in Basel was often only carried out as a side activity in printing houses during the following century. Independent typefoundries could only be found in Basel after the middle of the 17th century.

Cropped display of the top portion of Cyriakus Pistorius’s 1673 Fraktur specimen sheet. The image above shows the foundry’s largest three Fraktur sizes, including the Gros Canon Fractur, whose name is given in the top row (in all-caps). According to Albert Bruckner, this is the oldest-known specimen from a Basel typefounder. Image source: Basel University Library, UBH BE I 61.

Pistorius

1673
The typefounder Cyriakus Pistorius,[23] born at Ziegenhain in Upper Hesse, became a citizen of Basel on 13 November 1660.[24] Since, in 1661, he married Jakobea [Decker], daughter of the university printer Georg Decker,[25] it can be assumed that he first worked as a typefounder in Decker’s printing house and later became self-employed.[26] In 1673, Pistorius published a Fraktur type specimen.[27]

Decker acquired his printing house by way of marrying the printer Johann Schröter’s widow in 1633. It was elevated to a council printing house in 1642 and a university printing house in 1644. Typefounding had most likely been practiced there even earlier, for the [Schröter/Decker] printing house’s typefaces were undoubtedly created in the 16th century and had perhaps already used by [Johann] Froben and his descendants.

1704
Cyriakus Pistorius passed the foundry to his son Johann Pistorius (born 7 July 1664), who published a 16-page folio specimen of Fraktur and roman types in 1704.[28] In addition to passages of text, it also included the complete-alphabet showings of 16th and 17th century typefaces. Additional type specimens in poster format followed in 1721.[29]

Bottom of the last surviving specimen from the Pistorius foundry in Basel. It was a specimen of musical notation printed in 1747, now kept at the Frankfurt University Library. The specimen sheet was published by Anna Barbara Pistorius, widow of Johann Rudolf Pistorius. Their son kept the foundry running until 1809. You can view a complete digitization here.

1730, 1747, 1809
Johann Pistorius died on 19 April 1730.[30] His son Johann Rudolf Pistorius (born 2 November 1707) continued running the foundry until he died on 11 June 1747. Afterwards, the business was initially taken over by his widow,[31] and then by their son Johann Rudolf II Pistorius, who had been born on 4 August 1733. He died on 12 December 1809 and the foundry subsequently closed down. It was most likely taken over in whole or in part by the Haas typefoundry, which already existed in Basel. The last Pistorius foundry specimen, showing musical notation, had been published in 1747.[32]

Genath – Haas

1654, 1708, 1720
Johan Jakob Genath (born 1582, died 1654) owned a printing house with a typefoundry in Basel.[33] His son Johann Rudolf Genath (born 1638, died 1708) left behind two sons, of whom the younger one, Johann Rudolf II Genath (born September 16, 1679), was a typefounder who took over the foundry.[34] A 1720 specimen sheet, with French text on its footer, displays roman and italic types.[35]

First specimen sheet from the Genath foundry printed after the young Johann Wilhelm Haas arrived in Basel. Some of the types on this 1720 specimen must be from the Pankraz brothers, who had probably trained Haas in punchcutting at Nuremberg, when he was a boy. This specimen is part of the Gustav Mori collection of early type specimens kept at the Frankfurt University Library. Full digitization viewable here.

1737
In a record from the Basel State Archives dated 29 May 1737, Genath – who had no descendants – named the typefounder Johann Wilhelm Haas as his successor. Haas had enhanced the foundry by cutting and casting new types. Genath died on 18 July 1745.

In 1718, Johann Wilhelm Haas came to Genath in Basel from Nuremberg, where he had trained.[36] He was not only a typefounder and punch­cutter, but also a seal engraver and machinist.

1745
After Genath died in 1745, Haas took over the foundry. He became a citizen of Basel in 1758 and died in 1764 at the age of 66. His son and successor Wilhelm Haas (born 23 August 1741) had learned the typefounding trade but was also trained in printing and mathematics. He invented a systematic classification for spacing material and leading, which he published in a 1772 memorandum.[37] He also developed improvements to typefounding technology. Those included an “adjustable needle-gauge for testing the depth of strike”[38] for use in matrix justification.[39] His types were well-known for their beauty and were sought after by many.

Copperplate illustration of Wilhelm Haas the father’s cast-iron press. From Wilhelm Haas der Vater, Beschreibung und Abrisse einer neuen Buchdruckerpresse (Basel: Gedruckt bey Wilhelm Haas dem Sohne, 1790). Digitized by the Staats­bibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kultur­besitz. Slightly cropped above.

In 1772, Haas invented a new printing press made entirely of iron,[40] whose platen could print a forme with a single pull. However, the Basel printers would not allow Haas to put this new press into use within his workshop because he had not been trained in the art according to their guild’s laws and customs. After long negotiations, Haas was allowed to use the press to print his type specimens, but he could not train apprentices [in printing] or keep journeymen [printers in his employ].[41] In 1776, Haas invented a system for typesetting maps that brought him recognition.[42] Of his type specimens, only an octavo specimen from 1790 showing roman and Fraktur types has been preserved.[43]

Haas also made a name for himself in public service. Among other things, he represented the canton of Basel in the Swiss Grand Council during 1798. In 1799, he was general inspector of the Swiss artillery.

Map of Basel from 1776. Composed and printed typographically by Wilhelm Haas the father, according to a method he developed with Gottlieb Preuschen. From Albert Brucker, Schweizer Stempel­schneider und Schrift­giesser (Münchenstein: Haas’sche Schrift­giesserei A.G., 1943), plate 18.

1800
Wilhelm Haas died on 8 June 1800. His successor was Wilhelm Haas the son (born 15 January 1766).[44] He had been in charge of the typefoundry for years, had also learned [the craft of] printing and, had achieved significant results in his own workshop. After continuing to expand on his father’s inventions, he died on 22 May 1838.[45]

1830, 1852
Wilhelm Haas the son handed over the business to his sons [Georg] Wilhelm and [Karl] Eduard Haas in 1830,[46] under whom the foundry quickly fell into disrepair. Shortly before they died in 1852,[47] they sold 500 pounds of their matrices as scrap copper and thereby reduced the stock of good old typefaces to just a few remnants.

1857
Two remaining workers, the typecaster Jakob Haas – no relation to the previous owners but employed in the foundry since 1795 – and G. Münch took over the business in 1852.[48] In 1857, they sold it to Otto Stuckert, a native of Lörrach,[49] for 5,173 old Swiss francs. Stuckert tried to get the foundry back on track.[50] In 1863–1864, he published specimens in the form of a magazine called the Magasin typographique.[51] This was outfitted very well. However, his primary focus was on mechanical engineering, for which he employed about 120 workers. [The foundry] fell into decline again in 1866.[52]

Digital collage of pages from the second issue of Haas’s newsletter, Magasin typographique (1861). Most of the text in the newsletter was printed in French. In the Basel University Library’s volume of Haas foundry specimen sheets with the shelf number UBH AN I 525, the two pages seen above are indeed bound across from each other. In the digital version of that volume, you can find them in pages 18 and 19 of the PDF.

1866
From 1866 to 1895, the Basler Handelsbank owned the Haas foundry. Then, it was purchased by Fernand Vicarino.

1904
Since 1904, Max Krayer has been the Haas Type Foundry’s owner.[53] He moved it to München­stein near Basel.[54] Under his management, it has once again reached a respectable height.[55]

1927
The Haas Type Foundry was incorporated in 1927. At the same, it entered into a community of interests with the typefoundries H. Berthold AG in Berlin and D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt am Main.[56]

Undated photograph of the facilities Haas moved into in 1921. They reportedly cost more than twice as much to build as planned. With a system of vaulted ceilings, the architecture does not have the same “urban factory building” look Haas’s counterparts in Germany constructed. Image courtesy of Hans Reichardt.

Bär – Jünemann

1858
The typefoundry Bär from Zurich built a small foundry in Basel in 1858, about which nothing else is known.

1866
A typecaster and machinist from Berlin named August H. Jünemann, who had worked at the Haas Type Found foundry from 1858 until 1865, operated a workshop constructing typecasting machines in Basel-County in 1866.

Notes

The portraits of Max Krayer and Eduard Hoff­mann at the top of this post are from Albert Brucker, Schweizer Stempel­schneider und Schrift­giesser (München­stein: Haas’sche Schrift­giesserei A.G., 1943), plate 27. Other images’ sources have been explained in their captions.

1. Gustav Mori, Das Schriftgiesser-Gewerbe in Süddeutschland und den angrenzenden Ländern (Stuttgart: Bauer & Co. and Felix Krais, 1924).
2. Albert Brucker, Schweizer Stempel­schneider und Schrift­giesser. Geschichte des Stempel­schnittes und Schrift­gusses in Basel und der übrigen Schweiz von ihren Anfängen bis zur Gegen­wart (München­stein: Haas’sche Schrift­giesserei A.G., 1943).
3. Gustaf Adolf Wanner, «400 Jahre Haas’sche Schriftgießerei» in Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 54 (Mainz: Gutenberg-Gesellschaft, 1979), pp. I–XV (between pp. 324–325).
4. Brigitte Schuster, “The Haas Typefoundry Ltd. in an international Environment: Changes and Developments in its organisation and operation” parts one and two in Mathieu Christe (ed.), Footnotes A (2016), pp. 38–47 and Footnotes B (2017), pp. 50–56.
5. Bruckner pp. 16–17 and 36 (see note 2 above).
6. Foundry type is cast from an alloy of lead, antimony, and tin. When existing type is melted down to be cast afresh, some of the alloy’s tin is burnt off and must be replaced; see Claire Bolton, The fifteenth-century printing practices of Johann Zainer, Ulm, 1473–1478 (Oxford: Oxford Biblio­graphical Society and London: Printing Historical Society, 2016), p. 16, note 69.
7. One of Rusch’s types did indeed have an uppercase R that was bizarre. The face, Type 2:100G, has been redrawn as an OpenSource font, as part of the ANRT Gotico-Antiqua project.
8. Christie’s calls this the “Koberger Bible.” It is a Latin Bible; the first to include medieval commentary. As Bauer wrote, Rusch in Strasbourg printed it for Koberger, the book’s publisher in Nurem­berg. However, other sources use the “Koberger Bible” descriptor for a German-language Bible Koberger printed in 1483
9. For general biographical details on Johann Froben, see Arnold Pfister, »Froben, Johann« in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 5 (1961), pp. 638–640 [here is the online version].
10. For more on Melchior Lotter the elder, see Hans Lülfing, »Lotter, Melchior der Ältere« in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 15 (1987), pp.&snbsp;246–247 [here is the online version] or, in English, see Andrew Pettegree, Brand Luther: 1517, Printing, and the Making of the Reformation (New York: Penguin Press, 2015), pp. 110–114.
11. In his seminal book, A view of early typography up to about 1600. 2nd edition (London: Hyphen Press, 2002), Harry Carter seemed very impressed with Peter Schöffer the Younger, ascribing the introduction of “the modern era typefounding in which very few punchcutters supply the total demand” to him. [p. 109].
12. Peter Schöffer the Elder, usually referred to as just Peter Schöffer or Peter Schöffer of Gernsheim, was born at Gernsheim in 1425. Gernsheim is about a day’s walk south from Mainz. Schöffer ran Guten­berg’s workshop after Johannes Fust seized it in 1455 and quickly became one of the first (and maybe best of) the printer-publishers active in Europe. He died at Mainz in 1503.
13. Carter p. 113 (note 11 above) questioned this claim, writing that “I do not know why Friedrich Bauer, the historian of German typefounding, affirmed that Schöffer acted as punchcutter and typefounder to Hieronymous Froben and Episcopius after leaving Worms in 1529, because he does not cite the source of his information.”
14. The Basel University Library has two entries for Thomas Platter’s 1572 auto­biographical manuscript. Under Lebensbeschreibung, 1572, one entry is for the main manuscript. The other is for his addenda.
15. Florian Hardwig helped with this paragraph’s translation, for which I am grateful. When it comes to the “ring of money” that Platter paid to Schöffer the Younger, Florian replied, “I don’t know whether a ring is a specific unit or just ‘a lot.’” I’ve found several historical mentions of »ein ring Geld« on Google Books, so perhaps it is just an expression. Anyone know for sure?
16. Master Martin was the typefounder Martin Hosch; see Bruckner pp. 28, 42, and 44–45 (note 2 above).
17. Utz the punchcutter was Goruch Köpfle; see Bruckner pp. 28, 42, and 45 (note 2 above).
18. This must be the printer Johannes Wattenschne.
19. This must be Johann Froben’s son Hieronymus Froben, also a printer.
20. Platter was name-dropping yet another Basel printer, Nicolaus Episcopius.
21. This must be the printer Johann Herwagen.
22. As for most of the other printers, Platter used the Latin spelling of Michael Isengrin’s last name.
23. Bauer’s entry for the Pistorius typefoundry only offers an abbreviated account of its activities. The business was active in Basel for more than a century, run by at least four generations of the family. In his chronicle, Bauer devoted about a page to it. Bruckner’s history, on the other hand, includes more than 14 pages of information; see Bruckner pp. 51–65 (note 2 above).
24. Mori p. 15 (see note 1 above) supposes that Pistorius had most likely worked at the Luther typefoundry on Frankfurt am Main,
25. Georg Decker (1596–1661) was born in Eisfeld, then in Electoral Saxony. Today, it is part of Thuringia. Decker likely trained as a printer in a city near Eisfeld before gradually moving to the southeast. He worked in Tübingen before arriving in Basel, where he married Margarete Zäsinger in 1635. She was the widow of the Basel printer Johannes Schröter. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, descendants of Decker and Zäsinger would run a successful printing house and typefoundry in Berlin. This will be addressed later on in this series of Friedrich Bauer project posts.
26. Bruckner p. 52 note 8 (note 2 above) counters that no source proves that Pistorius worked for Decker prior to his marriage.
27. A digital copy of this specimen is provided by the Mori Collection at the Frankfurt University Library. The Basel University Library has shared one, too. Bruckner p. 53 (see note 2 above) describes this as the oldest-known specimen from a Basel typefounder.
28. The Gutenberg Museum in Mainz has part of Gustav Mori’s collection of early type specimens, which includes the 16-page Pistorius specimen described here. The specimen has not been digitized. According to Friedrich Bauer’s son, Konrad F. Bauer, this specimen includes a roman titling face from the early sixteenth century created for the transcription of Ancient Roman inscriptions; see Konrad F. Bauer, »Antiqua und Antike« in Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 33 (Mainz: Gutenberg-Gesellschaft, 1958), pp. 16–19, here p. 16.
29. The Mori collection at the Frankfurt University library includes three, which is probably what Bauer knew and was referring to, Those are a specimen of roman and italic types, another specimen of romans and italics, and a specimen of Fraktur, Schwabacher, Kurrent types, and calendar symbols.
30. Brucker p. 62 (note 2 above) writes that Johann Pistorius retired in 1727. His son Johann Rudolf Pistorius published one specimen of six Fraktur titling faces in 1729, which Bauer does not mention. The Frankfurt University Library had digitized that specimen.
31. Anna Barbara Pistorius née Vest; see Bruckner pp. 62–63 (note 2 above).
32. The Frankfurt University Library has digitized this specimen. It was published by Johann Rudolf Pistorius’s widow Anna Barbara.
33. Genath was not born into a printing family. He entered the profession after his studies at the University in Basel; see Bruckner p. 67 (note 2 above).
34. Bruckner p. 75 (note 2 above) seems to indicate that the typefoundry was split off from the Genath family’s printing house in 1702.
35. The Frankfurt University Library has digitized this specimen. François Rappo consulted it to design Genath, a baroque roman and italic family of digital fonts distributed by Optimo. Optimo’s page for the family states that the “1720 specimen [included] Johann Wilhelm Haas’ first design for the Genath Foundry,” which may be true. However, as the following note mentions, many faces on Genath’s 1720 specimen are probably cast from duplicate matrices for types from Haas’s likely mentor(s).
36. Bruckner p. 79–80 (note 2 above) finds it likely that Johann Wilhelm Haas learned his craft from the punchcutters Johann and Pankraz Lobinger. On p. 80, Bruckner continues, writing that Haas brought types from them to Haas, noting that, in the 1720 Genath specimen, “it is striking that the types shown correspond without exception to those on the broadsheet specimen from the Academic Printing House in Prague from 1678. Those come with complete certainty from Pankraz Lobinger’s workshop in Salzburg.” The Prague specimen of roman and italic types from 1678 that Bruckner mentioned has been digitized by the Frankfurt University Library. The library’s entry for the items also notes that it bears types from the Luther foundry in Frankfurt.
37. Wilhelm Haas, Erklärung einer neu-erfundenen und gemeinnützlicheren Einrichtung der Stück-Linien und Zwischenspäne mit den dazu gehörigen Tabellen nebst einer Anmerkung über die gegossenen Stege (Basel: Wilhelm Haas, 1772). WorldCat lists three copies of this memorandum. One is at the Basel University Library. Another is at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The third is in a Swedish library. Bruckner p. 90 (note 2 above) states that Haas printed this on the new cast-iron printing press he had invented.
38. Bauer’s original text calls the gauge eine Justiernadel für das Justieren der Matrizen. In the notes to their edition of Moxon, Herbert Davis and Harry Carter describe it as an “adjustable needle-gauge for texting the depth of strike.” See Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing. Edited by Herbert Davis and Harry Carter. Second edition. (Oxford University Press, 1962) p. 19. In the earlier notes on his translation of Fournier’s Manuel typo­graph­ique, Carter provided much more information: “Wilhelm Haas (born 1741), one of the more technically-minded of the punchcutters of the second half of the 18th century, invented an adjustable punchcutters’ gauge which he claimed was capable of a measurement of 1/1100 of the pouch du pied de roi. It is described and illustrated in the ‘Caractères d’imprimerie’ in De Felice’s Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire universel raisonné des connoissances humaines, vol. 7 (Yverdon, 1771), and plate 1 in section 10, ‘Fonder des caractères’ (Plances, vol. 4, 1777); in his portrait (reproduced in A. Bruckner, Schweizer Stempelschneider und Schriftgiesser, Basel, [1943]) Hass is shown holding this instrument.” See Pierre-Simon Fournier le jeune, The Manuel Typo­graph­ique of Pierre-Simon Fournier le jeune. Together with Fournier on Type­founding, an English Translation of the Text by Harry Carter in Facsimile. With an Introduction and Notes by James Mosley (Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, 1995) vol. 3, pp. *340–*341.
39. For photographs of an adjustable needle-gauge, see David M. MacMillan’s site; scroll down to “13.1. Screw/Needle Depth Gauge.”
40. Wilhelm Haas’s cast-iron press predated the Stanhope press’s invention by several decades. Nevertheless, James Moran described the Stanhope press as an improvement over Haas’s press, not a counterfeit; see James Moran, Printing Presses: History and Development from the fifteenth century to modern times (London: Faber and Faber, 1973) p. 50.
41. For similar reasons, Pierre-Simon Fournier le jeune had also been barred from printing, before he successfully petitioned for an exception; see Fournier pp. xxvi–xxix (note 38 above). See also Bruckner pp. 91–93 (note 2 above).
42. Around the same time, Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf in Leipzig developed his own method of composing and printing maps typographically; c.f. Bruckner pp. 95–98 (note 2 above).
43. The Houghton Library at Harvard University has digitized this specimen.
44. In German, the two men named Wilhelm Haas are differentiated by the terms “the father” and the “the son,” e.g., Wilhelm Haas der Vater und Wilhelm Haas der Sohn. An edition of diary entries from the younger Haas was published in 1997, see Markus Kutter (ed.), Ein Genie der Typographie. Wilhelm Haas, 1766–1838. Sein Tagebuch (Basel: Basler Papiermühle, 1997).
45. Bauer’s account of Wilhelm Haas the son’s life and the Haas foundry’s tenure under his direction is incredibly brief. While Mori pp. 21–22 (note 1 above) does not provide much more detail, Bruckner’s chapter on him runs for 25 pages; see Bruckner pp. 104–129 (note 2 above).
46. Like his father before him, Wilhelm Haas the son had transitioned into public service.
47. Georg Wilhelm Haas and Karl Eduard Haas both died during the same week in 1853. It was their mother who died in 1852. Georg Wilhelm Haas had been born in 1792, his brother Karl Eduard in 1801. Neither married or had children to inherit the foundry from them; see Bruckner p. 129 (note 2 above).
48. Johann Jakob Haas-Baumann (1784–1868) and Karl Friedrich Mönch Winkler, also a typecaster; see Bruckner p. 130 (note 2 above).
49. Lörrach is just across the German border from Switzerland. It is situated directly above Reihen, which itself is to the right of Kleinbasel on the right-hand side of the Rhine.
50. Bruckner p. 131 (note 2 above) describes how the foundry replenished its offerings: it purchased strikes from providers in Germany, including Johann Christian Bauer, F. A. Brockhaus, the Dresler type­foundry, A. Gerlach, Eduard Haenel, Gustav Schelter, Ferdinand Schumacher, and Trowitzsch & Sohn. About a year ago, I had the Basel University Library digitize an 1860 volume of Haas specimen sheets. Judging by that volume, Haas must have already had a great deal of recent typefaces by then.
51. The Magasin typographique’s first issue was published in January 1861. Three more issues followed that year. Issue five would not appear until January 1864. The last issue that I have found, number nine, was published in January 1865. These nine issues are bound into a the beginning of another large volume of Haas foundry specimen sheets kept at the Basel University Library that I had digitized a few years ago. The library estimates that the volume was bound in 1866 or 1867. In the Deutsches Museum’s digitization of the 1864 issues from Journal für Buch­drucker­kunst, a German printing journal, some issues of Haas’s Magasin typo­graphique can also be found.
52. According to Bruckner’s account [p. 132–133 (note 2 above)], it would seem that Stuckert’s other ventures must have been the cause. Looking at Haas specimens and at issues of Magasin typo­graphiqe, one could be forgiven for being unaware of Haas’s economic woes.
53. Max Krayer was the uncle of Eduard Hoffmann, of Helvetica fame. Hoffmann joined the typefoundry on the business side in 1917 and became its co-director in 1937; see Bruckner p. 135 (note 2 above). c.f. Brigitte Schuster, “The Haas Typefoundry Ltd. in an International Environment; Changes and Developments in its Organisation and Operation” at lapolice.ch. Hoffmann’s son Alfred was also a Haas director. He was featured in Gary Hustwit’s Helvetica documentary and only recently passed away in 2022.
54. The foundry moved to newly-built factory buildings in Münchenstein in 1921. The buildings still stand. Today, they house a school.
55. Bruckner’s book does not mention the punchcutter Edmund Thiel, who was with the company from at least 1924 onward; see Die Drucktype: Rückblick, Gegenwart, Ausblick (Münchenstein: Haas’sche Gießerei, 1980) pp. 29–31.
56. In 1927, Berthold and Stempel each purchased 45% ownership in the Haas Type Foundry; see Schuster (note 53 above).

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