Recenze Deutsche Spielschiffe / Bateaux jouets d'Allemagne / Toy Boats of Germany

The publication of Claude Bernard and Karl Greiner turns toward a subject that, to our luck not entirely, belongs to the story. The authors intention to summarize all of the interesting facts about the production of toy ships in Germany lead to a longstanding intensive research and to studies on this specific branch of industry. Claude Bernard therefore combined his enthusiasm and curiousness with the experience and knowledge of Karl Greiner who is a descendant of the founders of this branch of industry in Thuringia. By now a pool of source material and a foundation of facts and evidences for collectors and persons interested in toys have developed. It will be demonstrated the producers of this fascinating type of toy. Get to know something surprising about the variety und the special quality of their products. The catalogue is preceded by an overview about the development of the toy ship industry in Germany. At the beginning the authors refer to the lithographed presentation of toy ships in the sample books from the 19th century. The actual hour of birth of the production of toy ships in Thuringia started in the year 1853 as the publisher August Luge from Sonneberg handed two models to his business partner Johann Nicol Greiner. Luge purchased these two floatable wooden toy ships at the Isle of Wight. Two years later Johann Nicol Greiner founded the first Thuringian company that produces floatable toy ships in Steinach. The ups and downs of the following 150 years old development of the toy ship production in Thuringia and Germany are a result of the reliance on technical innovations and the attempt to react to social and economical movements. Remarkable is the aggregation of the companies in the Sonneberg, more precisely in Steinach and Hämmern. Hämmern isn't considered the shipyard for toy ships in Germany in the 1920s for no reason. The company-biography in this volume includes illustrating support materials. Those contemporary photographs that show scenes of the production are characterized by the authenticity and the complex content-related references. The received sample sheets, sketches and drawings gave enough information about the products of the manufacturers and about the design elements that are typical for each company. The companies logos, packaging, photographies and trade fair presentations provided insight into the cultural history und the application of advertising measures of this rather small branch of industry. Especially remarkable is the compilation of identification features that followed the photographic rendition of the products of each producer. The photographies that showed children with wooden toy ships such as Boy with a Greiner-Ship or Prince Wilhelm of Prussia with a sailing ship did have an emotional impact. The authors succeeded in conveying and maintaining the reader plastic impressions about the diversity and former presence of the globaly exported German toy ship production with the help of the detailed compilation of the source material. schovat popis