Joh. Enschedé

History

The company was founded in 1703, when Izaak Enschedé registered with the Printers Guild in Haarlem.

Joh. Enschedé has long been associated with the printing of banknotes; the company printed the "Robin" (Dutch: Roodborstje), the very first Dutch banknote, in 1814. Since then, Joh. Enschedé has printed the banknotes of the State of the Netherlands. In 1866, after the death of Johannes Enschedé III, Joh. Enschedé sold the family's book collection and began printing stamps.

Typefounding

Enschedé began manufacturing type in 1743 after purchasing the foundry of Hendrik Wetstein, and the foundry soon became the most important part of Enschedé’s business. The famous punch-cutter Joan Michael Fleischman was employed there in the eighteenth century.

Its type business flourished throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and in the twentieth century the foundry achieved widespread international acclaim through the design and production of types of Jan van Krimpen.

During the foundry type era, Enschedé types were distributed in the United States by Continental Type Founders Association.

Foundry typefaces

These foundry types were produced by Enschedé:

Bram de Does designed Trinité while at Enschedé, between 1979 and 1982.

Enschedé produced many other typefaces with matrices from other typefoundries for handsetting:

Today Joh. Enschedé specialises in security document design and printing (banknotes, postage stamps, parking permits, etc.), commercial print (annual reports, catalogues) and online document publication.

The company is a certified Euro banknotes printer, and produces euro notes for five EU countries.

Joh. Enschedé prints stamps for more than sixty countries.

Controversies

In 2016 reports emerged of the theft of 'a significant sum' of 50 euro notes at Joh. Enschedé during the course of two years. According to Dutch police, the theft was committed by several employees of the company.