The collection of autographs has grown out of the collection of about 2000 letters of the Cologne banker's daughter and wife Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen (1797-1857), who was associated with Bonn and who for decades moved in the Biedermeier Rhenish and Roman literary and art-loving world. 1849 bequeathed to the Bonn University Library by will, the collection has belonged to the collection since 1859. The original collection also contained foreign correspondence, e.g. letters from the estate of Sibylle's Weimar friend Adele Schopenhauer, whose adopted home was the Rhineland and who died in Bonn in 1849; the collection's holdings were almost doubled in 1895/96 due to the estate of the Bonn bookseller Gustav Marcus (1897 figures: 3928 copies of 2509 persons, 310 portraits).;The foundation of the Geh. Kommerzienrat Emil vom Rath, established in 1910, expressly served the care of Rhenish literature. Not only could manuscripts be acquired from their funds in 1911, but the former Mertens-Schaaffhausen autograph collection could also be expanded into a Rhenish autograph and portrait collection. The collection also grew considerably (by at least 841 pieces) in the years 1919 - 1922, when 184 "well-known personalities of the Rhine Province" responded to a request from the library and donated portrait photographs and autographs (often with self-biographical content) to the collection. Larger autograph complexes held together by writers or addressees, which were acquired in no small number in the following period, were generally not classified in the autograph collection, but as collections, partial bequests or splinter bequests in the group of S-signatures containing manuscripts of all kinds. In 1935 7057 autographs were counted, in the year 2007 the collection contained 7953 autographs; in addition further single autographs, which were not separated from the book because of the direct connection, are found as supplements in books. The location of these autographs results from the signature.

Father August Halbing was born in Mellrichstadt (Diocese of Würzburg) on November 5, 1870, was ordained a priest in Limburg on August 27, 1894 and died in Limburg on February 28, 1956. He was sent to Cameroon in October 1894, but already in July 1895, very weakened by tropical diseases, he had to return home. After his recovery he worked for several years as a teacher in our study home in Ehrenbreitstein, until he was able to travel to Cameroon a second time in 1900. During this second period in Cameroon he worked almost exclusively in Duala. The study of the national language was very important to him. He was able to print the Biblical story, the catechism and prayers in the Duala language, as well as a German grammar in Dula and a dictionary (German Duala) - all very valuable tools for the work of missionaries in the Duala district. In 1905 a second holiday trip to Europe became necessary and in 1906 he travelled to Cameroon for the third time, first again to Dula, until in 1907 he took over the management and the development of the catechist school in Einsiedeln on the slopes of the Cameroon Mountains, to which a Latin school for local priest candidates could be attached shortly before the war. He was able to train four courses of catechists himself, who together with the black teachers carried the mission work in Cameroon after the expulsion of the German missionaries in the First World War. At the end of 1913 P. Halbing had to return to his German homeland in need of rest. The outbreak of the First World War prevented his return to his beloved mission, which is why he sought to facilitate the lot of foreign prisoners of war by providing pastoral care in various camps until the end of the war. (from the death certificate) The estate largely comprises the papers Halbing brought from Cameroon to Germany in 1913. Bibliography of the works of Halbing on Cameroon in the library of the Mission House in Limburg 1. phrasebook Kleine Grammatik der deutschen Sprache mit nebenst einem Deutsch-Duala Wörterbuch für die katholischen Schulen in Kamerun / Beleedi ba gerama o jokwa bwambo ba teuto na leêle la beyala ba teut-duala, Limburg 1907[Library No. 192, 1717, double piece at the end of the collection; Fibel o nyol'a besukulu ba Katolik na bwambo ba Duala o Kamerun, Limburg 1907[Library No, 191 (p. 1-102, handwritten with phonetic characters, 1913)No. 1757 (only p. 1-16, 65-104) No. 1764 (only p.1-16) Only title of Halbing, which is proven in KVK. 2nd Pastoral Texts Little Biblical Story / Kalat' a Miango ma Bibel nisadi, by Franx Xaver Schulte, translated by August Halbing, Limburg 1903[Library No. 1726, Double piece at the end of the collection Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi / Miango ma mutaka ma Sango asu Jesus Kritus tengêné evangelo inêi ya bosangi, Salzburg 1905[Library No. 1725, Double piece at the end of the collection[Prayers] / Makane, S. 1-16, Duala 1912[Text table with lime trees, Katekismus a katoik, pp. 3-18 (see below)[Library No. 189[Prayers to Christ and other prayers] / Makane ma mot'a Kristus, Lame (Togo) 1913[Library No. 1738, Doppelstück am Ende des Bestandes[Songbook] / Kalat'a Evangelo na Epistel, 158 pages, Leipzig 1914[Library No. 1731, Doppelstück am Ende des Bestandes3. Printed works of other authors in use by P. Halbing Carl Meinhof, Die Sprache der Duala in Kamerun[mit einem Duala-Deutsch Wörterbuch] (German Colonial Languages, vol. IV), Berlin 1912 According to the entry probably not received until 1914 in Limburg from P. Sasse[taken from library no. 5906; P. Linden S.J.., Katekismus a katolik nyn boso nisadi na bwambo ba Duala (Cameroon), Limburg 1913[p.3-18 textidentisch mit Makane, p.1-16 (see above)[Library No. 1728, double piece at the end of the collection4. Manuscripts by P. Halbing: Psalms translation into the language of the Duala in Cameroon, handwritten, Christmas 1949, taken from the archive N.151 (Nachlass Halbing)

Estate:; contribution to the mission history of the Witbooist tribe for the archive of the Barmer Mission House, 139 p., i.e., 1897, the archive handed over by the author in 1904; some more from the unforgettable uncle Max (Huyssen), Dr., no. year; excerpts from Johannes Olpp's "Chronik d. !Kowesi-Stammes von 1780-1880", after the manuscript in the estate of Christian Wilhelm Friedrich Spellmeyer (copy), 25 p., 1890;