[Production proof for Heinrichsen-Kanzlei initials]

What follows below has largely been cribbed from an email from Dan Reynolds. We knew this was something, but we didn’t know exactly what. The short answer is that it’s a proof for some initial letters designed by Friedrich Heinrichsen to accompany his Heinrichsen-Kanzlei typeface, which the J. D. Trennert & Sohn typefoundry published in 1933. Here’s the long answer from Dan with minor omissions and edits made by us:*

The back of the card reads: 3.) Intitalen zur Heinrichsen-Kanzlei (Trennert Altona).

Altona is now part of Hamburg. I have some basic information on the Trennert foundry here.

Heinrichsen was one of Koch’s apostles. He was very close with Fritz Kredell, who had to flee the country in the mid-1930s because he had married a Jewish woman. Heinrichsen got a teaching post in Hannover, which he returned to after the war. In blackletter handwriting, an h is written like an f, and the s in Heinrichsen is a Long s, since it comes at the beginning of the name’s final syllable (sen).

In other words, it’s a neat artifact, explained to us (and you) by a generous expert. Thanks for reading. Thanks to Dan for writing.

*The edits were hardly necessary.