Introduction

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 fonts. Different solutions like ‘ſs’, ’ſz’ ‘ss’, ‘sz’ were used throughout the 19th century. But the roman ß that is used today in Germany and Austria wasn’t actually introduced until 1903, when a commission representing German, Austrian and Swiss printers and font foundries announced that the letter Eszett should also be included in all non-blackletter typefaces. A capital version was also discussed but the commission could not agree on one design and so its introduction was postponed. Nevertheless, some foundries took matters into their own hands and started adding a Capital Sharp S to their fonts. This ‘guided tour’ shows those designs from the first half of the 20th century and the type specimens that use them.