Featured Stein

Palmer Cox Brownies
by Ronald E. Gray


This month's featured stein is a relief stein, circa 1900, bearing the incised logo of SimonPeter Gerz, the form number 0131 and marked "Made in Germany". Twelve Palmer Cox brownies encircle the stein while a brownie dressed in a policeman's uniform with his baton sits on the lid. Palmer Cox (1840-1924) was a Canadian author and illustrator noted for his humorous books and comic strips featuring brownies. He moved to the United States in his early twenties, but didn't start drawing the brownies until years later in 1879. The brownies were based on the Celtic mythology and Scottish tales Cox first heard from his grandmother as a child. Brownies soon began appearing in several popular magazines, including The Ladies Home Journal. Each brownie, and there were many, had their own distinctive characteristics and features representing different ethnic stereotypes and speaking different dialects. Palmer Cox's Brownies were the first successful recurring characters used in toy manufacturing. They proved so popular that Kodak named their famous Brownie cameras after them. Two more examples of Palmer Cox brownies can be seen below.
	This stein and another S.P.Gerz brownie stein (#0130) can been seen in the Beer Stein Library.