Quality mark (GDR)

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The GDR quality mark was a seal of approval for the quality classes of industrial and handicraft products in the German Democratic Republic ( GDR ).

The quality mark Q was verifiably used on Glashütte quality watches as early as 1949 . The origin of the mark has not been finally clarified. The mark is presumably a quality mark introduced by the watch company “Lange & Söhne” (since April 1948 “VEB Mechanik Lange & Söhne”). It could also be a symbol given by the state of Saxony before the founding of the GDR, however, use before 1950 has only been documented on Glashütte watches.

Quality classes and quality marks

The industrial and / or craft products of the German Democratic Republic that met the TGL quality specification TGL 3933 have been given a specific quality mark. A distinction has been made between the following quality classes:

  • QExcellent quality quality mark Q (top products, above the average of the world market, since the beginning of the 1960s)
  • S. Special class for very good quality (predecessor of the Q quality mark until the early 1960s)
  • 1 Grade 1 for good quality (products that corresponded to the average of the world market)
  • 2 Grade 2 for adequate quality (products that corresponded to the intended use, but not the average of the world market)

Of the products that have been labeled with the quality mark for excellent quality, larger batches were often intended for export to the non-socialist economic area , especially to the Federal Republic of Germany. Numerical information given at the bottom of the quality mark indicates the origin of the product. There are several types of notation, a common variant is the type "01/1452". The first two digits indicate the basic territorial code of the district (01 = Rostock), the following 4 digits form the company number (1452 = VEB MTW ).

The establishment of the TGL quality regulations and the evaluation of the samples according to the quality classification were done by the expert committees of the German Office for Metrology and Goods Testing ( DAMW ), formerly the German Office for Weights and Measures ( DAMG ), composed in the same way as the working committees of the DNA . Special test laboratories were available to this office to check the technical data given by the manufacturers. In addition, the DAMG checked the samples used in the individual companies (referred to as “normal” in the GDR) for measuring devices at certain time intervals so that impermissible deviations from the original dimensions could be prevented.

TGL quality regulations

The TGL quality regulations of the GDR were intended to guarantee economical, state-of-the-art production and to ensure the quality of the products through characterization as a minimum quality specification or quality classification.

Therefore, every TGL quality regulation included information on:

  1. the term
  2. the scope
  3. the (short) name
  4. the technical requirements
  5. the test methods
  6. the quality classes (special class, quality class 1, quality class 2)
  7. the marking
  8. the packaging and transport
  9. warehousing

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ DDR-Fahrradwiki , accessed on October 8, 2015