You can pour your heart into
this collection, but
never beer.
There is one thing Tucsonian Ron Heiligenstein, right,
won't do
with the colorful,
finely crafted beer steins in his collection: drink beer out of them.
"If you drink out of them, you have to wash them. And if
you wash a
stein, you could chip it under the faucet," says Heiligenstein, who has
been collecting steins for 32 years.
He's a member of the Desert Steiners, a group dedicated
to the art, history
and Gemütlichkeit -- congeniality - expressed in the ornate
German
drinking vessels.
"These are an art form," Heiligenstein says as he shows
off a
variety of steins belonging to members of the group. "They were never
really made for utilitarian purposes." Reeling off a concise short
course
in steins, he notes that the word itself is a bit of a misnomer.
"The word stein, in German, means
stone," says Heiligenstein, whose
own name means holy stone. "Early steins were stoneware, which is Steinzeug
in German. Americans shortened it to stein."
To qualify as a stein, a vessel must have a handle, a lid and a
thumblift.
"Without the lid, it's a mug," Heiligenstein says.
Why the lid?
Heiligenstein says lids came into use centuries ago,
when it was thought that
bubonic plague was transmitted by flies. The lids were to keep flies
out of the
steins.
"Also, from a practical standpoint, the taste of beer
changes with
exposure to air," and lids limit the exposure, Heiligenstein says.
He says most steins are made of porcelain, but some are
stoneware and others
are pottery.
"The lids are always made of pewter," he adds.
Styles range from blue-gray salt-glazed stoneware steins
to so-called
"character steins" depicting people or animals.
Most high-quality, collectible steins are from Germany,
but some collections
also include steins from the United States and other countries.
Heiligenstein got his first steins from his mother, who
presented them to him
when he went off to college. Years later, during a trip to Munich,
Germany, he
came across steins similar to the ones his mother gave him - and he
began
collecting in earnest.
His collection, inspired
by an avid interest in European
history, is now
focused on a type called regimental steins.Produced between 1890 and
1914, these elaborate vessels
were associated with
German regiments and are inscribed with the names of their original
owners. Heiligenstein is an expert in this area, and the author of the
book "Regimental Beer Steins."
Collectors cite several reasons for the fascination with
steins.
"They're just such gorgeous things," says Spencer
Wessling,
president of the Desert Steiners. "You hold them in your hand and look
at
the history there, and the workmanship, it's beautiful.
Wessling says the group, made up of about 40 families,
is affiliated with
Stein Collectors International, with some 1,600 members in 28 chapters
in the
United States and Germany.
One goal of the group is to educate would-be collectors about the
history of
steins and how to recognize value.
Wessling says there's a big difference between cheap
"tourist
steins" and high-quality collectible pieces. There are so many
reproductions out there now, and a lot of them are sold as authentic,"
he
says. Rarity, quality of workmanship, historical context and overall
condition
are some of the qualities of a collectible stein, Wessling says.
Heiligenstein says that "the best way to avoid being
fooled about the
value of a stein is to educate yourself."
"A novice stein collector needs to accumulate
knowledge,"
Heiligenstein says. "Join Stein Collectors International. Go to the web
site (www.steincollectors.org) for information. Wessling notes that the
best
steins - especially those produced in the so-called "golden age of
drinking
vessels" from 1880 to 1920 - are expensive.
Collectors typically pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for
top-quality items.
Individual steins have sold for as much as $25,000, Wessling says.
"But we don't dwell on the money," he says. "You don't
buy
steins as an investment. You buy them because they're rare and
beautiful and
full of history."
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