Franz Schmidt & Co.

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Franz Schmidt & Co.
legal form
founding 1889
resolution 1972
Seat Georgenthal , Germany
Branch Doll maker , toy maker

Franz Schmidt & Co. ( FS & C. or FS & C and S & C ) was a doll- making company founded at the end of the 19th century in Georgenthal , Thuringia . The company is the predecessor of today's plush toy manufacturer Steiner Spielwarenfabrik .

history

The company was founded in 1889 by two men named Schmidt , including Franz Schmidt († 1942), who had a reputation as an innovator and to whom a number of inventions and improvements for the character dolls go back. At that time, the company's main products were ball-and-socket dolls made of paper mache , celluloid , wood, leather and textile. The later character dolls were made with bisque socket heads . For the production of the doll's heads according to its own designs, the company worked closely with porcelain manufacturers from the region, in particular with Simon & Halbig from Graefenhain . Franz Schmidt was the first to use the character dolls glass eyes and installed sleeping eyes. Further innovations were open nostrils from 1912 and an open mouth with a movable tongue from 1913. The dolls produced by more than 100 employees were exported to almost all European countries and also overseas and are now sought-after collector's items.

After Franz Schmidt's death in World War II , his son Arno headed the company from 1942 onwards, which after his death in 1946 was passed on to Helene Schmidt and Irmgard Steiner , née Schmidt.

In the particularly cold winter of 1955, there was a major fire in the factory; the hoses of the fire brigade burst due to the temperatures below -20 ° Celsius, while the company's archive and the porcelain molds were largely irretrievably lost. In the same year reconstruction began under Harald Steiner , a grandson of Franz Schmidt. Instead of porcelain head dolls, paper mache dolls were now made.

As the GDR restricted private companies more and more, “[...] necessary replacement and new investments [...] were more and more blocked by the state, so that modernization of doll production by switching from papier-mâché to plastic dolls was no longer feasible . “So Harald Steiner and his wife Helga gradually converted the company to the production of plush toys at the expense of the previous doll production.

In 1972 the company Franz Schmidt & Co. was nationalized and operated as VEB Plüschspielwaren Georgenthal from April 23, 1972 . Helga Steiner remained plant manager in the previous company, her husband became head of sales at VEB. In 1980 the management was taken over by VEB biggi Waltershausen , which from 1981 belonged to VEB Kombinat Spielwaren Sonneberg .

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the large combines were dissolved and individual businesses were transferred to previous owners or their legal successors. The couple Helga and Harald Steiner were able to continue the former family business on October 1, 1990 - two days before German reunification - as a Steiner toy factory with a focus on soft toy production.

Brands, numbers and dates

Franz Schmidt & Co. had already registered trademarks in the 19th century : Before 1900, the word factory mark was in use over an anvil with the abbreviation FS & C. , which was stamped on the doll's body or embossed on the head. Before 1902 the brand S & C was in use, from 1902 the abbreviation FS & C above a doll in front of crossed hammers. Cellobrin was used from 1909.

The following shape numbers were stamped into the heads of Franz Schmidt dolls: 269, 293, 927, 1180, 1250, 1253, 1259, 1262, 1263, 1266, 1267, 1270, 1271, 1272, 1274, 1293, 1295, 1296, 1297, 1298, 1299, 1310 and 1409 . Bisque china heads produced by the company Simon & Halbig for Franz Schmidt & Co. bore the shape numbers 1180, 1293, 1295 to 1299 and 1310 . A small z next to a shape and size number is the abbreviation for centimeters .

Archives and museums

The German Historical Museum is in possession of a 39 cm tall " character baby " by Franz Schmidt and Co. with a head made of bisque porcelain with glass eyes on a body made of mixed material that was typically clad for the time.

Literature (selection)

  • Jean Bach: International Handbook of Doll Brands. A doll identification book , English original title: The main street dictionary of doll marks , translated by Wolfgang Hartmann, Munich: Laterna Magica, 1989, ISBN 3-87467-389-8 ; P. 112 and others; contents
  • Jürgen Cieslik , Marianne Cieslik : Cieslik's Lexicon of the German Doll Industry. Brands, data, facts , 2nd, revised edition, Hamburg: Marquardt & Wellhausen; Jülich: Cieslik, 1989, ISBN 978-3-939806-20-2 (Wellhausen & Marquardt) and ISBN 3-921844-20-7 (Cieslik)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Deviatingly, the founding year 1900 is mentioned, compare Jean Bach: Franz Schmidt & Co., Georgenthal in ders .: Internationales Handbuch der Puppenmarken ... , p. 112

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Jean Bach: Franz Schmidt & Co., Georgenthal in ders .: Internationales Handbuch der Puppenmarken ... , p. 112
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g History / Toys and Dolls - since 1889 on steiner-pluesch.de , accessed on August 23, 2016
  3. ↑ Character baby from the workshop of Franz Schmidt and Co ( memento from October 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), collections of the German Historical Museum , everyday culture III
  4. ↑ Baby doll: The year of the nostrils , Bayerischer Rundfunk , December 14, 2013
  5. ↑ Gudrun Scholtz-Knobloch: Character doll from Franz Schmidt magazine Puppen & Spielzeug from May 16, 2011
  6. ↑ Dawn Herlocher: 200 Years of Dolls , KP Books, Iola, Wisconsin 2005, p. 329, limited preview in the Google book search
  7. ^ Schmidt Franz & Co , historytoy.com
  8. ^ Government Gazette for the State of Thuringia 1946, pp. 199, 454
  9. ↑ a b Erika Martens: Thuringia / The Steiner couple conquered the toy market in the west with soft toys / Fear as an incentive , in: Die Zeit from October 21, 1994, accessed on August 23, 2016
  10. ^ VEB Kombinat Spielwaren Sonneberg , Thuringia archive portal
  11. ↑ Character baby from the workshop of Franz Schmidt and Co ( memento from October 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), collections of the German Historical Museum , everyday culture III

Coordinates: 50 ° 49 ′ 56.9 ″  N , 10 ° 39 ′ 42.1 ″  E