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Copperplate, Engrosser's Script, Roundhand Calligraphy / Re: A German business card, AD 1895
« on: December 29, 2023, 05:05:16 PM »Greetings from Kiel, Germany, hometown of my wife. When visiting the maritime museum I noticed the below business card. It belonged to Carl-Wilhelm Loewe (https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Löwe_(Verwaltungsjurist), the first president of the Kiel canal (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiel_Canal), completed in 1895. What struck me was that his card is printed in pure Copperplate style. That seems to suggest that at the close of the 19th century, Copperplate was a “dominant” or “customary” choice for “stylish” documents such as business cards. Indeed German handwriting (as taught in schools and used in official documents such as the ship logs displayed at the museum) at that time differed significantly from Copperplate - for a start, it was not written with a strong right-hand slant).@Vintage_BE
Interesting as well to my neophyte eyes is the “w” as used in this business card. It looks
Very interesting card.
The slant of the letters on this card match the slant of the letters (Kurrentschrift) in the 1873 book "Ahn's First German Book" by P. Henn, used to teach "first graders" how to write Kurrentschrift (the common script at the time).
(Also, the slant Madarasz used (approximately) at the time of the card.