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Inge-Glas®
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Beginning
in 1597 in Lauscha, Germany, the Müller family
created mouth blown glassware. Two and one-half
centuries later, in the 1860s, the
Müller-Blech family customized their craft to
create mouth blown, hand painted ornaments. For
nearly as many years, a second family, the
Eichhorns, produced fine quality glassware as
well.
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In
1953, following the World War II Russian occupation
of Lauscha, Heinz Müller-Blech fled to
Neustadt-by-Coburg, Germany, and there he
reestablished the family workshops. Today the
company and its Christmas ornament collection,
Inge's Christmas Heirlooms, bear the name of
his late wife.
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In
the early 1990s, through marriage, the
Müller-Blech and Eichorn families combined
their traditions and skills. Inge-Glas®
remains a family operated business built by 14
generations of effort, heart, and soul. And to this
day, many of the ornaments are handcrafted in molds
that date to the 1860s.
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The
pictures below are from a recent visit to the
Inge-Glas®
workshop in Neustadt-by-Coburg.
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The
vault of antique molds.
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Mouth
blowing clear glass ornaments.
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Hand
silvering the inside of the ornaments.
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Hand
painting each ornament—with drying
time between each color.
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Hand
glittering each ornament—again, with
drying time between each color.
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Roger
Lund, owner of The Christmas Haus,
selecting ornaments with Klaus
Müller-Blech, the 14th generation
head of the family company.
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Old
World Christmas
Between
1984 and 2000, The Merck Family's Old World
Christmas distributed Inge-Glas®
German-made ornaments in the United States. In
2001, Old World Christmas began producing
its ornament designs in China, no longer capped
with the Star Crown, which is owned by
Inge-Glas®. Since 2001,
Inge-Glas® has exported its glass
ornaments under its own name, complete with the
exclusive Star Crown, which continues to
identify mouth blown, hand painted ornaments from
the 14th generation Inge-Glas® family
workshops in Neustadt-by-Coburg,
Germany.
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MAROLIN®
by Richard Mahr
GmbH
The
Richard Mahr company was founded in the 1900 by
Richard Mahr in his parents' home in the town of
Steinach, Thuringia. Like many family craft
businesses then and now, the house was both a
residence and a workshop.
After
discontinuing the production of paper mache figures
in 1973, the original recipe was lost. By chance,
workers found the formula written on a cellar door
in 1990. Although the receipe remains a secret, the
basic ingredients of the MAROLIN® paper mache
include clay, kaolin, plant-glue and paper
pulp.
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Figurines
are poured into a form to create a hollow body.
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Since
the molds are made of plaster of Paris, they absorb
the moisture of the liquid and a thin layer sticks
to the mold's walls.
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The
figurines are hand-painted, demonstrating the
decorator's masterly skill and love for details.
Each piece takes about one week to create.
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The
Schaller Family
Business
Carl
Schaller ~ Ino Schaller ~ Dieter Schaller ~ Thomas
Schaller
from 1894 to the present
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Carl
Schaller started a company in his home to
produce paper holiday articles, including paper
mache, flocked, and pressed cardboard items, in
1894, in Neustadt-by-Coberg, in Bavaria, in west
central Germany.
His pieces, especially the paper mache candy
containers that open from the bottom or middle,
were exported to the United States by Woolworth's,
which had a warehouse in nearby Sonneberg until
1939.
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Ino
Schaller inherited his father Carl's business,
but by the late 1940s, he moved into pressed
cardboard figures, and by the 1960s was producing
pressed plastic forms as well.
Dieter Schaller, Ino's son, also made
cardboard toys and figures, such as rabbits, ducks
and Santas. Both Ino and Dieter produced plastic
plush-covered figures through the '70s and '80s,
and the family continues to produce them
today.
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Thomas
Schaller, Dieter's teenage son, found his great
grandfather's candy container molds in the family's
attic in the mid-1980s. Fascinated, he sought the
help of his father Dieter to revive the craft of
mold casting and pouring paper mache.
Today, there are many candy container
"reproductions," but nothing matches the integrity,
quality and artistry of one made in the original
mold, by the same family, in the same house where
the original family business began more than 100
years ago.
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The
pictures below are from a recent visit to the
Schaller family home and workshop in
Neustadt-by-Coburg.
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The
process of making Ino Schaller paper mache
and composition figures takes seven days.
On the first day, the craftsperson
combines liquefied paper, clay, glue, and
a few secret mineral ingredients.
On the second day, the worker blends the
mixture to a smooth consistency and pours
it into a two-part plaster mold. In a
short while, the plaster draws out some of
the water content, leaving a thin paper
mache shell.
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The
crafter pours out the excess liquid, and
the shell dries through the third day. On
day four, the artisan dips the paper mache
form in liquid plaster, creating a thin,
smooth white skin for the hand painted
details and trim. The plaster skin makes
this a "composition" figure.
On the sixth, seventh and eighth days, the
artist applies layers of paint, fine
details, and glaze, with drying time
between each coat. Finally, the artists
apply the finishing touches such as
chenille, cellulose shavings, ground glass
and mica.
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Roger
Lund, owner of The Christmas
Haus, selecting candy containers
in the Ino Schaller showroom in
Neustadt-by-Coburg.
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Roger
Lund, owner of The Christmas
Haus, and Thomas Schaller, 4th
generation head of the family
company.
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Steiff
Toys
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Margarete
Steiff's motto: "Only the best is good
enough for children."
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Margarete
Steiff created the first Steiff animal in
1880—an elephant made of felt, that
was intended for use as a pincushion. The
elephant was the first soft-filled fabric
toy animal and soon became very popular
with children who enjoyed playing with
it.
From November 1904 onwards, every Steiff
animal leaving the factory had a "Button
in Ear." The original button was made of
metal, embossed with an elephant. The
elephant was later replaced by the name
"Steiff" but still a world-famous
trademark: Steiff "Button in Ear."
Over the years, Margarete Steiff GmbH has
become the leading manufacturer of
high-quality toys and collectors' items.
The main production facility is located in
the German town of Giengen/Brenz, Germany.
Steiff originals are highly valued.
Collectors and enthusiasts pay very high
prices for antique Steiff
products--innumerable rarities have
already been auctioned and have repeatedly
produced headline-grabbing
prices.
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Erzgebirge
Wooden Folk Art
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The Erzgebirge is a low
mountain range just north of the Czech Republic
border in the German Province of Saxony, south of
Dresden. Although originally known as a mining
center ("Erzgebirge" means "ore mountain"), the
mountains have always been covered by abundant
forests.

The
forests of the Erzgebirge
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Early
Erzgebirge Wooden Folk Art (The original
Wilhelm Friedrich Füchtner nutcracker is in
the center.)
Beginning in the early
14th century, mining of silver, tin, iron and
nickel fueled the area's economy. By the late 17th
century, making wooden wares for household use
became a second significant source of employment.
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In response to the growing
demand for toys in the 18th century, more and more
woodworkers became toymakers. When the mines began
to play out around the middle of the next century,
the miners turned to the cottage industry of
woodworking to support their families.
The village of Seiffen,
situated in a valley surrounded by forested hills,
is the present day center of the traditional
Ergebirge wooden folk art. There are about 200
full-time woodworkers in the region and perhaps 800
part-timers, mostly working in small year-round
workshops and family enterprises.
Many of the workshops
represent generations of the same family, working
in the same surroundings, to preserve the heritage
of wooden toys and folk art designed by their
ancestors more than a century ago.
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Füchtner
Nutcrackers
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Roger
Lund, owner of The Christmas Haus, arrives at the
Füchtner Homestead in Seiffen
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Wilhelm
Friedrich Füchtner (1844-1923), known the
world over as the "Father of the Nutcracker" carved
the very first nutcracker around 1870. His home
workshop in Seiffen, the small toy-making village
in the middle of the Erzgebirge in eastern Germany,
is still the home of the finest nutcrackers.
His ancestors were carpenters and in the wintertime
they were out of work. In order to provide for
their families, they used their woodcarving skills
to produce wooden figurines. In 1786, Gotthelf
Friedrich Füchtner sold the first wooden
figurines at the Dresdener Striezel Market.
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Wilhelm
Friedrich Füchtner
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Today,
six generations later, Volker Füchtner honors
his great-great-great grandfather by still
producing nutcrackers in the old tradition in the
very same home workshop—the birthplace of the
nutcracker.
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Volker
Füchtner at his lathe
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Volker
Füchtner and Roger Lund, owner of The
Christmas Haus, in the Füchtner
workshop
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report any broken links or errors to webmaster@TheChristmasHaus.com.
©
The Christmas Haus and The Summer House Collection, LLC,
2008
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