Vom Fels zum Meer (“From rock to sea”) is an “illustrated journal for the German house” edited by Wilhelm Spemann (1844–1910) and published from 1881 to 1917. Between 1890 and 1897, Spemann’s publishing house was merged into Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, a company he had founded together with Adolf Kröner (1836–1911).

The shown letter was sent in January 1894 to one of the family journal’s advertisers, the “Duc” Cycle Co. in Herzogenbusch, that is ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. “Duc” was a brand by B.A. Jansen who imported bicycles manufactured by the Quinton Cycle Co. in Coventry, England. Pasted in the bottom left corner is a sample of the ad that was to be included in Vom Fels zum Meer.

The text block at the top right features five different blackletter typefaces. The title is set in Renaissance-Fraktur, with the subtitle added in a version of Original-Gotisch. “Monats-Ausgabe” uses a German adaptation of Tudor Black, possibly Psalter-Gotisch by Krebs. Last but not least, we get to see Flinsch’s Halbfette Schwabacher and Albert Anklam’s Neue Schwabacher.

Detail

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“Herzlichen Glückwunsch zur Hochzeit” from G. Schröder and family.

This series of wedding cards from 1919 was posted on Altpapiersammler’s Flickr stream, a treasure trove of (mostly) German ephemera. The generic greeting cards all have about the same format, they all show a single typeface in two or three sizes, they all say “Herzlichen Glückwunsch” (“Congratulations”), followed by the name of the sender. They are framed by some decorative embossing, and were all personalized with handwritten additions in Kurrentschrift, like “zur Hochzeit” (“on your wedding”).

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Detail. For some reason, the typesetter used ligatures for the two ch pairs, but not for ck.

The typeface used on the first card is a narrow Textura cut by Friedrich Wilhelm Bauer in 1876, named Accidenz Gothisch schmal (later spelled Akzidenz-Gotisch schmal). Akzidenzen are, literally, “things that occur”. In the German printing trade, it’s the traditional term used for everything that’s not a book or some other text-heavy publication; for example invitations, birth announcements, business cards, ads, flyers, etc. Akzidenz-Schriften thus are typefaces suitable for these kind of jobs — “jobbing typefaces” is an English equivalent. In the days of metal type, they were sold in smaller quantities than Werkschriften (body types). Stylistically, Akzidenz-Schriften are often ornamented (outlined, open, shaded, floriated, etc.) or otherwise fancy in some way, but that’s not a requirement, as one can see in the famous Akzidenz-Grotesk. Size isn’t the defining criterion either: some were cast in sizes as small as 4pt. One could say that every display typeface is a jobbing typeface, but not every jobbing typeface is meant for display sizes.

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Greeting card with finely embossed branches and ornaments, sent by Thea Wilkens and Rudolf Paulsen from Heide, Schleswig-Holstein.

The open sans on the second card is Sezessions-Grotesk licht, issued by the Julius Klinkhardt foundry in Leipzig around 1903. The Sezessions-Grotesk series comprises a number of styles and was also cast by other foundries, including Stephenson Blake in England (as Arabian). Just like similar releases by Berthold or Ludwig & Mayer from the turn of the century, this Jugendstil sans serif was named in reference to the Secession art movement in Munich, Vienna, and elsewhere.

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Detail.

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“Herzlichen Glückwunsch zur Hochzeit u[nd] beste Grüße!” (“Congratulations on the wedding and best wishes!”) by August and Martha Burmeister from Marne, Schleswig-Holstein.

The third card uses an italic with swash caps. Designed by Heinrich Wieynck, it was first cast by the Bauer foundry in 1911, as Wieynck-Kursiv. In the 1970s, Letraset revived the design as Phyllis, which is the name that Bauer had used for markets abroad. Phyllis is used with ſ (long s) and ligatures for ch, ck, and ſt, as it was still common at the time.

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Detail.

This invoice by the Leipzig subsidiary of Everth & Co. GmbH, or Euco, a gas station operator and distributor of Monopolin (the brand name of a fuel enriched with potato-based ethanol), benzol, and other gasolines, was issued in 1929. It shows two faces cast by the Gebr. Klingspor foundry in Offenbach, home of the “artist’s typefaces”: Tiemann-Mediäval (1909–12) by Walter Tiemann, and Neuland (1923) by Rudolf Koch. Although the latter was presented as a “Werbeschrift” (and in engineering contexts) in the specimens, it is rather a rare bird in commercial printing. Tiemann-Mediäval, and especially its dainty italics, makes for a great contrasting complement. Neither is an obvious choice for the visual identity of a gasoline distributor, at least not to our contemporary eyes.

The punches for Neuland were manually cut by Rudolf Koch himself, without any previous design on paper, true to the Arts and Crafts ideal of immediate expression — “like in the old days, the inventor of the form and the maker of the punch united in one person” [specimen]. Each size is hence a little different, as one can see in the letter ‘H’ here (36pt and 28pt). Walter Tracy points out that greater differences only occur in letters where the variation doesn’t matter much, which suggests that at least some of them are intentional.

The line for place and date features all three members of the Tiemann-Mediäval family, regular, halbfett and kursiv. The form design allowed for “Herrn” (gentleman) or “Firma” (company) — female customers were not yet envisioned.

Not only was Germany oscillating between Fraktur and Antiqua typography. Handwriting was complicated, too: People learned and used two fundamentally different scripts, “Lateinisch” (roundhand) and “Deutsch” AKA Kurrent (a cursive broken script). The writer of this invoice mixed both styles arbitrarily. The first line reads “Euco-Benzin”, with characteristic Kurrent forms for ‘B’, ‘e’, and ‘z’. The line below reads “Euco-Zechenbenzol”. Now the ‘e’ and the ‘z’ are clearly “lateinisch”, while the ‘ch’ shows “German” letterforms.