Beer Stein Stories

Today, I’ve been looking for beer stein manufacturers based on maker’s marks. And this, naturally, has me wanting to share the story.

I’ve got 2 beer steins with pewter lids. They were given to me after my dad died, and had belonged to my uncle who passed away a few years before my dad. I’m considering selling the steins and wanted to research their maker’s marks, so, I packed a snack and some tea, and headed off on an excursion through the Internets to see what I could find.

It turns out that one of the steins was manufactured by Goebel Merkelbach Salzglasur in the mid- to late- 1970s. The mark is interesting. It has the “Bee in the V” mark, which indicates it’s from their “Hummel” range of ceramics. You might be familiar with Hummel figurines – those cherubic, pastoral children doing cherubic, pastoral activities.

Originally conceived in Germany as drawings by Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel in the 1930s, they were popularized as postcards by the German art publisher Ars Sacra. By 1935, W. Goebel Porzellanfabrik had acquired the rights to make the drawings into figurines and the first figurines were produced and introduced at the Leipzig Trade Fair. Soon after, US interest in them grew, and they have been popular collectables in Germany and the US since.

Besides figurines, the Hummel range obviously produced beer steins as well; which, to a North American might seem at odds with the making of figurines of children climbing apple trees or going on adventures. But I’d imagine that to Germans, who have always held children, and beer, in high esteem, and who are a pragmatic lot, manufacturing cherubic, pastoral ceramic figurines and beer steins in the same factory pays tribute to the foundation of German society: Children and beer.

The other beer stein’s maker’s mark is from Paul Vogt Keramik. According to steinmarks.co.uk, “Paul Vogt was an established potter in Naumburg (now renamed Nowogrodziec) nr. Bunzlau (now renamed Boleslawiec). Lower Silesia, Free State of Prussia (now part of Poland). In 1945 those of German nationality were forcibly expelled from German occupied Silesia and other areas, to become refugees. Vogt settled in Pang, nr. Rosenheim, Bavaria. Here he started his new business, which is still in operation today.”

Dad’s family lived in what was then Prussia, south of what is now Gdansk, and became refugees when it became Poland after WWII. What scraps of the stories of the family’s exodus I know is gripping. Dad was the last person to see his house. He threw his skates over his shoulder, took a long look inside through the front door, shut and locked it. Then he turned his back and left, never to see the family home again. He traveled to West Germany, hanging on to the outside of trains and skating along the rivers Vistula and Oder. The rest of his family and his younger brothers squeezed themselves onto the trains heading out, along with thousands of others. My uncle, a twin, was a small child then. I never got the chance to ask him about his memories of that time of his life.

But, now I have his beer steins, and I’ll imagine him visiting Germany from his home in Seattle, traveling through the many pastoral towns with their church steeples rising above the horizon, dotting the landscape. Family members may have accompanied him or he may have been on his own or with a companion. Along the way, he stopped and purchased one or both of these beer steins. Perhaps they were never used, but served as a reminder of his trip, and were placed in a cupboard, nodding and bowing their acknowledgement of him as he opened, then shut the door.

And now I have them. And they are sometimes hidden so far back in my cupboard that they’re forgotten. Sometimes, they emerge from their long hibernation to wink and nod at me, teasing me with their curiousness.

And now you know about them too.

Who knows where they will go. For now, I’ll print out some information about their history and place it in their gaping mouths, and set them aside until the time that they, and I, decide on their future.