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From: Ron
Remote Name: 68.0.177.189
Date: 12/18/2012
Time: 12:25:39 AM
Alex, In collecting anything, knowledge is the key. While you can learn a lot from reading material, you really need to meet fellow collectors and examine other collections. Mettlach is the biggest name (quality, quantity and price) and that makes them the prime target, I have seen several post-WWII porcelain lithophanes (the ones with the bump in the handle used for the cold-war steins for U.S. units) that are stamped "Mettlach." Mettlach didn't produce porcelain steins. I have also seen newer etched steins, like the ones Thewalt produced, with a new bottom added so a copy of the Mettlach mark could be attached. There is an article on this one in Prosit. I wouldn't call either of these counterfeit because they don't come close to matching the Mettlach quality. Schierholz started reproducing some of their molds circa 1980 and even used the old has mark. There was an outcry from collectors and the practice was stopped. The reproductions were pretty good and they can cause a lot of confusion to collectors if they are not careful. There are a lot of ignorant sellers out there and there are also a lot of sellers that wouldn't hesitate to mislead the buyers. Bohne was bought by Albert Stahl and they now reproduce some of the old Bohne molds. They use a new mark and it normally is easy to distinguish the new from the old. Stahl does make one of the nicer steins today. Girmscheid reproduced some of the old molds in the post-WWII era, but you can spot them fairly easily, particulary with the bigger mold number on the bottom. Thewalt, as well as other firms, have purchased old molds and reproduced the steins, generally you will find the Thewalt mark on them. They reproduced the sailor character stein (original manufacturer unknown), but they had to redo the mold. Consequently, the Thewalt sailor is about an inch shorter than the original. I think someone, perhaps a worker, stole some of the newly made sailors before they were painted and marked. These appear with blue uniforms and Albert said they never painted them blue. Of course, even Mettlach began trying to remake steins to match the old methods. While a Mettlach collector knows the difference, they also can be misrepresented to the novice collector. Continued on next post!