N. Wiederer & Co.
The company N. Wiederer Fürth was a mirror factory and glass grinding shop in Fürth .
About history
Foundation and upswing
The N. Wiederer company was founded in 1858 by Nicolaus Wiederer in the Helmstrasse in Fürth in the house of Mr. Auerbach. At first he engraved glass, but two years later after moving to the house "Zum Silbernen Fisch" (Helmstrasse), he began faceting small mirrors. The two step-sons Konrad and Georg Schwarz did an apprenticeship with Nicolaus Wiederer.
After the war in 1866 , Wiederer produced small facet mirrors for portefeuillers (fine bag makers) that previously only came from Paris. Eventually he introduced the production of hand mirrors, which initiated an upswing. In 1878 the company becomes an open trading company . In the meantime, around 40 workers were employed in the rear building of the Metzler estate. In 1879, the year after the company's founder died, the Schwarz brothers bought a building site from Aldinger on Leyher Strasse. In the following years they built factory buildings for the roller faceting, the grinding shop, the locksmith's shop, the belt shop, the carpentry shop and a boiler house with a chimney. At that time the company N. Wiederer & Co. operated as the Royal Bavarian Court Mirror Factory and Glass Grinding Shop.
From 1893/94 onwards, toilet mirrors with metal frames and the ultra-modern celluloid mirrors were produced. When Kommerzienrat Konrad Schwarz died in 1910, the workforce had already risen to around 800. In his place his son Geo Eugen Schwarz, his son-in-law Paul Sichling and from the commercial councilor Georg Schwarz, Benno Schwarz joined the company as partners. After the almost complete standstill of production at the beginning of the First World War , there was a new upswing after the war. A separate glassworks in Freiberg / Saxony and the Sperlhammer grinding and polishing plant were acquired. One last new building at the corner of Leyher Str. - Kaiserstr. was pulled up. In 1925, Kommerzienrat Georg Schwarz left the company and his son Fritz Schwarz became a partner. The workforce had increased to over 1,000.
Bankruptcy and closure
The business continued to flourish for a few years with increasing sales. Due to the general economic upswing during the Great Depression in 1929, there was a steady decline. The foreign markets ceased to exist. The department store chains ordered fewer. The house in New York couldn't be held. In 1931 and 1932 there were more settlements and bankruptcy filings among long-term customers. This resulted in more and more losses. There was a further decline in sales. The factories were set up for mass production and no longer able to work efficiently.
In March 1932, the respected company was also forced to seek a settlement, which eventually went bankrupt. However, by using all available stocks in finished and semi-finished products and the extensive stock of materials, it was possible to fully satisfy all creditors.
Products
- made of crystal glass
- Venetian mirror
- Etageren
- Trays, coasters
- Clock mirror, photo stand
- Shop window stands, bust stands, Ventetian chests of drawers
- Dining lockers for pastry shops and cafes
- Counter tops
- Standing beer hall facilities
- Art glazing
- processed with wood (partly also with crystal glass mirrors)
- Hand and adjusting mirror
- Folding mirror
- Closet paper apparatus
- processed with metal (partly also with crystal glass mirrors)
- Hand and adjusting mirror
- three-part mirror
- Window mirror
- processed with celluloid (partly also with crystal glass mirrors)
- Hand and adjusting mirror
- various cans and toilet cases
- Shaving mirror
- Advertising mirror
distribution
Own houses were maintained in:
- Offenbach / M .: to supply the leather goods industry
- Berlin: as the much-visited central center of the empire
- Hamburg: with sample warehouse for processing exporters
- New York: to maintain the connections with the large department store groups.
Sample stores were located in Amsterdam, Christiania (Oslo), Copenhagen, London, Moscow, New York, Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest and almost all other European capitals.
Our own commercial travelers worked the entire inland without gaps. Representatives in almost all European countries as well as in numerous countries on the rest of the world took care of the company's interests and ensured the steady increase in sales. At the Leipziger Messe was im Städt. Handelshof, 1st floor in rooms 92 and 93, showed a rich collection of all of the company's production lines, which gave an overview of the large number of articles produced. In addition to maintaining the domestic market, supplying the Leipziger Messe was particularly aimed at increasing international traffic and establishing valuable connections with reliable representative companies. In Leipzig they kept in contact with good customers from all over the world. Advertisements in export magazines made the company known all over the world and the issue of detailed, illustrated catalogs supported the work of travelers and agents.
gallery
Catalog around the turn of the century
Kommerzienrat Konrad Georg Schwarz
Hand-painted mirror
Hand mirror with catalog
Main factory in Fürth
Freiberg glassworks
Sperlhammer polishing plant
literature
- Notes on the company history of Konrad Sichling, (grandson of Konrad Georg Schwarz)
- Catalogs from the Wiederer company , family photos, company products
- Mirror . In: Adolf Schwammberger: Fürth from A to Z. A history dictionary . Fürth: Self-published by the city of Fürth, 1968, p. 342
- Barbara Ohm: Fürth, mirror factory N. Wiederer . In: Schauplätze der Industriekultur in Bayern / ed. by Werner Kraus, Regensburg, 2006, pp. 246–247
- Barbara Ohm: Again mirror production . In: Fürth - Geschichte der Stadt, Fürth, 2007. pp. 203–206, 217, 252 u. 337
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Heinrich Habel: Monuments in Bavaria - City of Fürth , Lipp, 1994, p. 252