Ravenstein’s Radfahrer-Führer, Arbeiter-Radfahrerbund “Solidarität” edition
Teil IV: Rheinlande südlich bis zur Mosel, Teile von Westfalen und Hessen-Nassau, Hessen, Bayern, Baden und Württemberg (Eifel, Taunus, Odenwald, Tauber- und Neckargebiet) nebst Rundfahrten in den Rheintälern, Eifel, Sauerland, Lahngebiet, Nahetal und Taunus.
Ravenstein’s Radfahrer-Führer is a series of cycling guides issued by Ravensteins Geographische Verlagsanstalt in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Established in 1830 by Friedrich August Ravenstein (1809–1881), the cartographic publishing house was continued by his son Ludwig (1838–1915).
The guides were edited by Ernst Ludwig Richter, long-time chairman of the touring committee of the German Cycling Federation. Shown here are volumes IV, V, and VI, each of which covers certain regions of Germany and neighboring countries. This specific edition from around 1910 was distributed (or endorsed?) by the Arbeiter-Radfahrerbund „Solidarität“. This association is known today as Rad- und Kraftfahrerbund „Solidarität“ Deutschland 1896, or RKB for short. From Wikipedia (translated):
The RKB was founded in Offenbach am Main in 1896 as the “Arbeiter-Radfahrerbund Solidarität”. An initial founding act in Leipzig in 1893 had still been banned despite the repeal of the Socialist Law. The national office was initially located in Chemnitz, but the association moved its headquarters to Offenbach am Main in 1907. In the Weimar Republic, the ARB was the largest cycling association in the world with several hundred thousand members. The name Solidarität (Solidarity) was intended to express that this association saw itself as part of the workers’ movement.
The association’s name and its address are shown at a dramatic angle, set in two italic typefaces: Reklame-Kursiv by the Krebs foundry and (one of the many versions of) Halbfette Cursiv-Grotesque, a design that, according to research by Dan Reynolds, originated at Juxberg-Rust in 1874. The upright grotesks look like Breite magere Grotesk and Neueste schmale Grotesk, both by Bauer.
Teil V: Rheinland südlich der Mosel, Rheinhessen, bayrische Pfalz, Elsass-Lothringen (Vogesen), Baden, Württemberg (Schwarzwald), Schweiz nebst Teilen von Frankreich und Rundfahrten im Schwarzwald, Schweiz und um den Bodensee.
Teil VI: Bayern, Tirol, Salzburg, Steiermark, Kärnten, Ober- und Niederösterreich, Böhmen, Mähren und Rundfahrt durch Tirol, Steiermark und Vorarlberg.
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In the days of metal type, designing a sweeping script came with a technical challenge: any overhanging parts that weren’t supported by the rectangular body underneath were prone to break off under the pressure of the press. To allow for less restrained extenders and swashes, Krebs came up with a novel casting method which they dubbed Fundament-System.
Krebs explains that the face of all glyphs, including the overhanging ones, rests on a cicero-thick sloping foundation. Figure 1 shows the letter n; the body is recessed one cicero deep above and below the typeface and the overhanging parts of b f g h etc. are placed in this recess, which is present in all non-extending lowercase letters. This new casting method made it possible to give the letters b f g h j k l n ff fi fl the sweeping form shown in Figs. 2, 3, 4 and 5. Of course one can’t use these ornate glyphs next to an ascender or descender, as they’d collide. That’s why the font includes simpler forms for these letters, too. In addition to the default capitals, there are also swash initials which are kerned as tight as possible.
Other foundries had developed related methods for inclined typefaces. A common one used skewed bodies – rhomboids instead on rectangles – which are called Falzkegel in German. The sorts interlock via tongues and grooves, see these examples by Thomas Gravemaker and Martin Z. Schröder.
Unfortunately, the covers of the cycling guides feature neither the initials nor any of the lowercase glyphs with overhangs.