Pharmacy labels by Fr. Melsbach, Sobernheim
Kräuter-Elixier (“herbal elixir”). The center-aligned typography shows three sizes of Eckmann-Schrift (1900). The long s (ſ) appears only in the sch trigraph (“verschiedener”, “geschätztes”). Contrary to the traditional rules, it’s not used for “wirksamen” or “Bestandteile”.
Labels for the use in pharmacies and drugstores, printed by Fr. Melsbach, Sobernheim. Established in 1832, the Melsbach company is still in the business of pharmacy supplies. Several labels found in a Melsbach album from 1886 are reproduced in the October 1966 issue of Gebrauchsgraphik and show predominantly lettering. The labels featured in this post were made about twenty years later, around 1905, and are typographic, i.e. they were made with the use of fonts.
See more pharmaceutic labels in altpapiersammler’s album on Flickr.
Lenilaxin uses a typeface that was sold by many foundries under various names, incl. Viktoria (Theinhardt), Phönix (Poppelbaum), and Medea (Flinsch; later continued by Bauer). The smaller text is in one of the light cuts added by German foundries to their Bradley adaptations, see Original-Altgotisch. The price is in Korinna (1904).
Peru-Kognak is set in Nelson, the German name for Cosmopolitan (1895) The roman is Schelter & Giesecke’s Romanisch (1889).
The label for Thymian-Keuchhusten-Saft (“Thyme syrup for whooping cough”) pairs Eckmann with Original-Altgotisch and a condensed grotesk.
Keuchhusten-Elixier ft. Liane halbfett (1909). “Gebrauchs-Anweisung” is in a condensed grotesk. The instructions are set in Tauchnitz-Antiqua, a stylistic variant of Schelter-Antiqua. distinguished by different forms for ‘dkvwxyAKMRUVWX’ (and probably also ‘Y’), in most cases replacing curved diagonals with straight ones.
Lenilaxin combines Schelter-Antiqua with two grotesks. All type is reproduced in negative.
If I ever need to go to a pharmacy, this is it.