“Herzlichen Glückwunsch” greeting card

Herzlichen Glückwunsch is German for “congratulations”. This die-cut and embossed greeting card in the form of a fan was probably made around 1900. The blackletter typeface with tendril-like swashes is Antike Kanzlei.

Drawn in-house at Flinsch and cut by William Kirkwood, Antike Kanzlei was issued in 1882. According to type historian Friedrich Bauer, Kirkwood was “an outstanding Scottish artist who worked for the Dresler-Flinsch foundry for more than thirty years,” from around the 1850s to the 1880s. In 1865, he trained fourteen-year old William F. Capitain in punch cutting. After his time in Frankfurt/Main, Kirkwood went to Sheffield, England, and cut many typefaces for them, the most prominent one being Elisha Pechey’s Windsor. David Wakefield mentions that his mother was German, and that “after 1902, he left Sheffield to return to his homeland”. It’s not clear to me if this means Scotland or Germany. Antike Kanzlei was still being sold in 1926, by Bauer, AG für Schriftgießerei u. M., and Klingspor. It also goes under the name Renaissance-Kanzlei.

This one is for the one and only Stüf, and all other summer’s children who can use a fan on their big day. Happy birthday, my dear friend! I wish we could clink glasses today.