The Capital Sharp S (ẞ) in Letterpress Fonts

The Lowercase Sharp S (ß), or Eszett as it is often called in German, developed at a time when German was almost exclusively set in blackletter typefaces. An uppercase counterpart wasn’t really needed at that time since uppercase-only typesetting wasn’t used for blackletter and the letter also could not appear at the beginning of words.  But once more and more German texts were set using roman typefaces, typesetters needed a solution to represent what they would print as ‘ß’ in blackletter

Kleukens-Antiqua by F.W. Kleukens was released in 1910 by the type foundry ‘Bauersche Gießerei’. The typeface has an unusual lowercase Eszett with a tail pointing to the right instead of the left. The uppercase Eszett is designed as a ligature of ‘S’ and ‘Z’. This corresponds with the understanding of the Eszett in blackletter fonts at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. In fact, the name Eszett literally means “s-z”. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the letter ß is

This type specimen booklet has the capital Eszett of Kleukens-Antiqua on its cover. 

Belwe-Antiqua by Georg Belwe was released in 1913 by Schelter & Giesecke. All style of the family got a convincing capital Eszett design with a descender and a swash stroke that also appears in other letters of this typeface. 

Dolmen and Zierdolmen by Max Salzmann were released during the 1920s by Schelter & Gisecke. The Eszett design is very similar to the model that became the most common design principle in the 21st century. 

Ehmcke-Antiqua and Ehmcke-Kursiv (italic) by Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke were released by the German type foundry Flinsch at the beginning of the 20th century. Ehmcke gave his typeface an unusually large character set. The design included a capital CH, a capital CK, a capital ß and even a capital ſ. The descender helps a little bit, but the ẞ design is not very convincing as it looks too much like a B. 

Complete character set of Ehmcke-Kursiv. 

Feder-Grotesk was designed by Jakob Erbar and released by Ludwig & Mayer in 1909. The design contains a convincing capital Eszett and the type specimen booklet even addresses the addition of the capital Eszett: “Another innovation is the design of the capital ẞ. The designer has only been able to achieve the successful design of this character by (alongside the usual round s) adding an ſ with a descender, similar to the f. We admit that one must get used to these descenders, but this innovat

From the Feder-Grotesk type specimen booklet.

Gnom was designed by Albert Auspurg and released by Schelter & Giesecke in 1914. The typeface only contains capital letters. Along with the solid versions in two widths, several decorative variations were released under their own names: Kolibri, Perkeo, Tauperle. All of them contained a capital Eszett. 

A picture of the capital Eszett of Gnom in 12 points. 

Gnom ẞ used for the word SÜDSTRAẞE. 

Journal-Antiqua was designed by Hermann Zehnpfundt and released by the type foundry Gursch. Their type specimen booklet for Journal-Antiqua uses the capital Eszett extensively. After the foundry was taken over by the H. Berthold AG, the type specimen booklet was republished, but this time without the capital Eszett. 

More examples from the Gursch type specimen booklet. 

Ad by the Gursch foundry in the magazine Typographische Mitteilungen 1914

Grimm-Antiqua was designed by Richard Grimm-Sachsenberg and was originally released by the Klinkhardt foundry in Leipzig and later continued by the H. Berthold AG. 

Pictures of Grimm-Antiqua in 20 points. 

Koralle is a sans-serif type family released by Schelter & Giesecke starting in 1913. 

The letters ß and ẞ from Koralle in 36 points. The design is a typical example of taking the lowercase Eszett and giving it the proportions of a capital letter to create a capital Eszett. 

Some of the Koralle styles using a capital Eszett for all the headlines. 

Monos is a display typeface released by Schelter & Giesecke in 1911 in two widths. 

Roland-Grotesk is a decorative sans-serif design released in several styles by Schelter & Giesecke between 1909 and 1912. 

Ehmcke-Rustika was designed by Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke and released by the foundry D. Stempel AG in 1914. It comes with a capital Eszett which unfortunately looks too much like the letter B, despite the addition of a descender. 

Schelter-Antiqua was a type family released by Schelter & Gisecke starting in 1905, presumably making it the first mass-produced typeface to have a capital Eszett. 

Schneidler-Latein by F.H. Ernst Schneidler was released in 1916 by Schelter & Giesecke. 

Fictional use in a type specimen book. 

An ad from the Schelter & Giesecke foundry using a capital Eszett printed in the publication “100 Jahre Pößnecker Zeitung” from 1928. 

Shakespeare-Mediäval was designed by Georg Belwe and released by Schelter & Giesecke in 8 styles in 1927. It was one of the latest letterpress fonts containing a capital Eszett. 

Type specimen page using the rather unusual ẞ design of Schakespeare-Mediäval in the last line. 

The Parcival type family, designed by Herbert Thannhaeuser, was released between 1930 and 1932 by Schelter & Giesecke. The capital Eszett uses an interesting design approach. The design is based on the lowercase Eszett, but the upper bowl is increased significantly to create uppercase proportions. 

An ad for Parcival-Antiqua using the capital Eszett in the last line. Source

The typefaces shown on the previous pages were released between 1905 and 1930. After that, letterpress type foundries seemingly stopped adding the character to their fonts. What was originally only introduced as an interims solution in 1903 became the new standard: replacing the ß with SS or SZ in uppercase-only typesetting. But after a spelling reform in 1996, which gave the letter ß a clearer phonetical purpose, the discussion to introduce a capital Eszett started again.  The letter ẞ was