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The following letter is written by the famous London bankier Huth & Co (1777-1864) in London the 12th of October 1867 to Johann Rudolf Näf & Soehne (manufacture of silk and half-wool fabrics). Johann Rudolf Näss (1788-1865). Letters written from Huth & Co. are rare to find. The letter has more text than an average letter from this company and might have interesting historical content. Is there someone that can help me to read this German (Swiss-German?) text? I struggle both with the Current handwriting (?) and the language itself (I need a lot of help). The letter is just a little over one page. It has six or seven sentences on the first page. The last sentence is a question. There is only one sentence on the second page with the numbers 3 1/2 and 24 or 241 + "Yours sincerely" (some similar German frase) Frid. Huth. Most of the text that seems to be on the second page is just burnt-through letters from the first page due to the use of acidic iron gall ink. I am currently writing about this bank and any help will be referenced of course. The letter is addressed to Affoltern am Albis in Zürich in Switzerland and sent Via Calais.

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    It certainly will help if you can get a scan without the shine-through of the backside. The word "help" also implies that there is some attempt of your own which one can build upon instead of a request "please do all the work" :)
    – planetmaker
    Commented Jun 18 at 12:41
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    Shine-through when scanning thin paper can often be significantly reduced by simply backing the scanned paper with a thicker black sheet
    – tofro
    Commented Jun 18 at 14:48
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    I am sorry to say that the shine-through issue is not easily resolved, but in actuality most of the letter is on the first page and only the top 10% of the second page. You can see where the sender has signed with Frid. Huth. The problem is that this letter is written with acidic iron gall ink, so this is not a shine-through problem but a burn-through. I am working on the letter and will add words I find. In English and Norwegian letters I get some more support from knowing the language well, but here is the extra challenge of this being German or Swiss-German.
    – Kjartansk
    Commented Jun 18 at 17:36
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    Maybe the burn through problem could be resolved with some digital postprocessing, by applying some filters?
    – Jonathan Herrera ♦
    Commented Jun 18 at 21:23

1 Answer 1

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London 12 Oct 1867 †
Herren J. R. Näf & Soehne
Affoltern a/ Albis
b/ Zurich

Unser Schreiben vom 5 [A] höflich
bestätigend hatten wir in den letzten 8
Tagen einige Umsätze, sind aber heute
wieder ruhiger geworden, in Folge der
ungewißen politischen Verhältniße auf
dem Continent. So lange wir in dieser
Hinsicht nicht klarer in die Zukunft schaue[n]
können, ist ein flottes Geschäft nicht leicht
möglich. Ohne das hingegen hätten wir
jedenfalls Besserung auf [us.] Markte, da
überall großer Bedarf vorhanden ist.
Mit der letzten mail ist wieder
Einiges in neuen Japanseiden herein-
gekommen. Wir brauchten davon einige
isolierte sehr schöne Bällchen †† ganz classische
12/16 [Maibach] für Ihre Gegenden zu 30/6
[&] 30/-. Unter den nächsten Ankünften
dürften wohl größere Parthien ganz gleiche
Ware sein, hätten Sie vielleicht einigen
Bedarf?

Psatlees ††† sind sehr billig geworden [&]
könnten wir Ihnen sehr hübsche, weiße &
feine [...] 3 1/2 à [...] 24/- liefern.
Mit freundschaftlicher Hochachtung
zeichnet [Fried. Huth...]

† The date is 1867, as originally written by OP, not 1807. We know f.i. that Johann Rudolf Näf founded his firm in Affoltern am Albis near Zürich in 1846; renamed “Joh. Rud. Näf & Söhne” after his death in 1865 (p. 7 here). It was active at the 1867 Expo U in Paris (p. 144 here). The author is possibly a representative of the firm Fr. Huth, not the F. Huth who died in 1865.
†† Bällchen = a small Ballen 1. c)
††† Psatlee was apparently a kind of silk traded in the 1860s, as per this 1864 book.

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    @Kjartansk Glad I could help. Feel free to mention my username, but other than that I'd like to keep my privacy :) However, please keep in mind that I used the square brackets the mark the bits where I am still uncertain, and the dots in squares brackets are words/symbols I couldn't decipher. I hope, someone else here can fill some of those gaps. And please, leave me a comment with a like to the published article.
    – Arsak
    Commented Jun 19 at 14:12
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    @Arsak: great transcription. I took the liberty to edit in some additions and corrections, I hope this is OK – do rollback the changes if otherwise!
    – marquinho
    Commented Jun 19 at 15:09
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    @marquinho Thanks a lot for your corrections and additions. This is exactly what I was hoping for :)
    – Arsak
    Commented Jun 19 at 15:12
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    @Arsak Thank you again for the answer and the editing. I collect old letters and other handwritten texts and write articles and stories about them. I don't know if you know, but Huth & Co. is claimed to be the first truely global bank and merchant. The background for what I do is hoping to inspire my university teacher students to preserve handwriting skills and the use of handwriting tools in schools in my country. Our strange little blog www.pennenermektigere.no had about 25.000 clicks in average every month last year.
    – Kjartansk
    Commented Jun 19 at 21:10
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    And thank you @marquinho for editing.
    – Kjartansk
    Commented Jun 19 at 21:11

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