Inside RaRo 1928, and types of type support

Continuing our series on the type manufacturers Alfred Ransmayer & Albert Rodrian (RaRo), and with the happy support of Marlize L. and Ryk van Dijk, we today venture inside the Ransmayer & Rodrian factory.

In the introduction of their catalogue "Liste A", the company proudly shows their state of the art manufacturing rooms and storage. The time is 1928, and only recently the hitherto separate firms of Alfred Ransmayer, located in Köpenicker Strasse 113, Berlin, and Albert Rodrian, in Blücherstrasse 32, Berlin, have merged into "Alfred Ransmayer & Albert Rodrian". The seat of the newly founded company is the Ransmayer factory in Köpenicker Strasse 113.

RaRo have reason to be proud. Their enterprise is continually expanding, dominating not only the German market, but exporting their type all over the world. They boast a "steadily growing stock of several million units of regular type, covering ca. 60'000 possible choices and sign combinations in more than 360 type styles and languages."

We first have a look at the premises, and then have a closer look on RaRo's broad choice of type carriers.

With so many different typewriter models and systems in place, type manufacturers at the time are obliged to produce an insane variety of type support, each fitting the specific typewriter model. Here is what RaRo has to offer in 1928 (click on images to enlarge):

That's it for today - see you soon for the next part on RaRo!

RaRo Special Type 1928

Alfred Ransmayer & Albert Rodrian are an ever pervading presence when it comes to collecting typewriters. RaRo didn't produce typewriters, but the essential parts for typewriters to function: type. From a business that started off modestly as a sort of one person Berlin HP garage (only that the founder, Alfred Ransmayer, as an Austrian certainly enjoying a good cuisine, preferred his kitchen table to the garage), from a modest business founded in 1899 A. Ransmayer grew to 400 employees already by 1909. You can read some more on RaRo history here.


Marlize L. and her man on the ground, namely typewriter mechanic Ryk van Dijk in Friesland, were so kind to provide us - us as us in the typosphere - with extensive raw material in the form of several Ransmayer & Rodrian catalogues. These catalogues contain, in essence, lists of types samples produced by RaRo. The basic categorization of type is in regular type, i.e. type so common that RaRo would keep them on stock, and special type, which was produced on demand, and cost more. Later on, the catalogues also feature products from the thriving Keytop-Department.

We start off with displaying special type ("Sonderzeichen") from the 1928 RaRo catalogue. I cannot help but take an educational approach - the information is so overwhelmingly rich that it deserves to be served in taylor-made pieces. Of course all information available will be made accessible to the typosphere - some issues of copyright need to be resolved before hand, so please be patient.

But now, enough talked, see for yourself: Special type from the 1928 catalogue, symbols come first, the  keys to the numbers at the end. So if you want, take your guesses before looking up the solution. Enjoy!

Series continues next week.