[Production proof for Wilhelm-Klingspor-Schrift]

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 Rudolph Koch’s Wilhelm-Klingspor-Schrift. Here’s the long answer from Dan with minor omissions and edits made by us:*

Note the alternate, narrower caps, which were a feature of the design. It must be from a late stage in the typeface’s development. The proof is signed “Eichenauer” in the bottom right hand corner by Gustav Eichenauer, Koch’s punchcutter. Eichenauer had apprenticed at Klingspor but did not work there properly for long. He opened an engraving studio near the Technische Lehranstalten (the Offenbach design school where Koch taught between 1907 and 1934). Koch and Klingspor were among his customers. Eichenauer had begun working on the typeface in 1918 or 1919. It had a rather long development time.

In those days, it was common to complete one size of a typeface first, usually this was the 28 or 36 point size. Once that was definitely finished, the rest were produced. Designer’s drawings were usually photographically reduced to the trial size and could then be traced onto a “punch” although Eichenauer, like many of his contemporaries by this time, were not making those trial cuttings in steel but rather on blocks of type metal, which were much softer. 28 or 36 point was big enough that soft metal could hold the necessary detail.

Once a punchcutter had finished cutting all the sorts, matrices were produced by electroplating each soft-metal punch. Then, trial letters could be cast (often by hand) and these would then be printed. At that stage, funny as it may sound today, the letters’ spacing , or “sidebearings” in digital font terms, had not yet been determined. To see how the letters all looked at actual size and with spacing approximations, cards like this had to be produced. You are correct that this must have taken forever and was excruciating.**

The story goes that, after Karl Klingspor saw the first sample print for Wilhelm-Klingspor-Schrift (it wasn’t called that yet), he deemed the letters too dark and it had to be cut all over again, with thinner strokes. There are some artifacts from that before and after process at the Klingspor Museum.

After the trail size was finished and approved, it was photographed and photographically resized to every other point size the typeface would have (larger or smaller). Some foundries then used pantographs to engrave matrices for all those other sizes. Klingspor probably used pantographs to cut the few larger sizes and had punchcutters cut the smaller sizes, in steel if necessary. Wilhelm-Klingspor-Gotisch famous[ly] has a noticeably less-ornate design in smaller sizes. This proof shows the 12-point design.

As I mentioned, this proof is pretty late and I think it is a spacing proof, not a design proof. The first line of pencil handwriting reads (probably!): Zur. H ä n g h. I’m guessing here but the “Zur.” is probably an abbreviation for Zurichtung, which essentially translates as spacing (and sometimes also kerning). So this is either a spacing test for those letters in particular or – probably more likely – a spacing test whose result meant that something had to be done to the letters H, ä, n, g, and h.

The second line of pencil handwriting reads: Okt. 24 1 Cic. Sebaldusschrift Eichenauer

That means: Oct.[ober 19]24, 1 Cic.[ero] Sebaldus-Schrift, [Gustav] Eichenauer.

1 Cicero = 12 Didot points. A Didot point is 0.376 mm. So 12 point is 4.512 mm. The lowercase f as the long s should each be 4.512 mm in length.

And Sebaldus-Schrift was the working name for the typeface. St. Sebaldus is the patron saint of Nuremberg, I think. There is definitely a large gothic church dedicated to him there. And Koch was originally from Nuremberg. It was decided to name the typeface after Wilhelm Klingspor instead. Wilhelm was Karl’s younger brother and a part-owner of the foundry. He handled the financial side, while Karl focused on design. Wilhelm was a veteran of the German army during the First World War, like Koch. Both had been injured in the fighting but Wilhelm Klingspor’s wounds were more serious, and he died in or around 1925. I believe that he was buried with full military hours; the veteran’s association certainly played a prominent role at his funeral.

I have not yet seen [Eichenauer’s] name on Koch proofs in the Klingspor museum. Other proofs often have names in the same place, but other young researchers and I have not been able to attach them to particular people, even though there is a relatively good record of Gebr. Klingspor employees.

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.

**In our original email to Dan we wrote “[We]’ve found similar things on the Klingspor site with characters cut and pasted onto cards. Do you know why they would do this? It seems like an awful task.”