Stielers Handatlas was the leading German atlas of the second half of 19th century and first quarter of 20th century - "Handatlas über alle Theile der Erde und über das Weltgebäude" is rather popular german "Hand-atlas". It is valued among others for the realistic visual representation of relief, which is especially obvious on the map number 16 - The south-west Germany and Switzerland. Unlike for example Sohr-Berghaus Handatlas, which is mainly focused on Central Europe, Stielers Handatlas presents the whole world more evenly and many remote parts are shown in rather a high detail in mapy side maps.
It is actually really hard to imagine how much effort it took to produce each copy of this atlas. Most of its 95 double-page maps are copper engraved coloured by hand. This must have made the atlas very expensive (my guess would be it was 20-40 times more expensive than todays atlases) and only affordable for a small percentage of society. Interestingly, today, when this atlas is almost 130 years old, may be more affordable than it was at the time of production.
