Foundry type in Germany
I’m in communication with Rainer Gerstenberg in Germany. He started with Stempel and has been casting hot metal since 1963, billing himself as “the last trained typecaster in Europe.”
https://www.rainer-gerstenberg.de/?lang=en
He has space in the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt, close to the birthplace of printing with moveable type. He tells me that the management of the museum is renovating and doing away with his foundry. He doesn’t know the future of all of his equipment. There should be a wider conversation about re-homing his foundry which includes 40 machines and typefaces, this shouldn’t be Rainer’s battle on his own.
Giesserei a.JPG
There are some petitions online for Rainer - though I doubt the “management” will listen. A very worthy cause, he casts exquisite type.
Oh no! The successor to ATF in the USA is gone (for some years), and now this? I sure hope someone steps up to give Rainer and his foundry a home.
If a person were to start a Go Fund Me (or similar effort), I would certainly contribute to it.
My family started their printing business in 1868. I am 80 years old. I can’t conceive of life without a letterpress shop, even my current hobby one. We need all the foundries which are left.