The full history of Akzidenz Grotesk is still in the dark – many foundries could lay a claim to it. Ferdinand Theinhardt’s Royal may have been an influence, and Scheltersche Grotesk was probably a predecessor. No other typeface is as prevalent in our cases at p98a, it’s been a good companion ever since I first came across it when I started to take an interest in letterpress type – which was all the type there was at the time. We’ve had Rainer Gerstenberg cast us several versions in many sizes over the past seven years, shipping kilos of type from Darmstadt to Berlin. We’ve even had him make us characters and symbols that never existed from Berthold, like # or @. We made drawings and Rainer had matrices made for his casters. One size at a time.