Original German WWII Königsberg State Amber Manufactory Prizes and Honor Booklet Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. The State Amber Manufactory was established in Konigsberg in 1926 as a joint-stock company with its branches in Berlin and Danzig.

Amber was extracted in the village Palmnicken, where the initial treatment of the stone was conducted and a smelting shop was located. Konigsberg became the center of end production.

There was a factory with sorting and press shops as well as the Manufactory directorate here. The number of the Manufactory workers was 2650 by the end of the 1930s.

A special attention was given to the quality and high artistic level of amber articles. From the beginning of the 1930s a wide advertising campaign was launched and aimed at promotion of German gold within the country. The “Day of Amber” was celebrated in Palmnicken where huge models of the productions were shown during an elaborate parade.

The Manufactory opened its representative offices in Paris, London, Vienna, Brussels and New York. The articles of the Manufactory gained international acceptance also due to participation in numerous exhibitions where they were repeatedly awarded with high ranking prizes.

The State Amber Manufactory became the largest in the world enterprise for extraction and treatment of amber. A high artistic level of its mass production played a significant role in the promotion of amber articles far beyond the borders of Germany.

This booklet was intended mainly to show examples of the different types of state prizes available at the time, and is titled Siegespreise und Ehrengaben aus Bernstein, or “Victory prizes and honorary gifts made of amber”. The booklet shows a beautiful selection of amber work, especially the prizes as well as honorary gifts and “arts and crafts” items that were made.

The various ranges of the articles produced at the Manufactory were divided into five groups.

The most numerous group included jewelry articles. The other group consisted of household articles. The third consisted of the articles of religious faith. The fourth group involved souvenirs, commemorative medals, sports prizes as well as various badges.

However, the production was not limited to only commercial products. The fifth group included original works of art, sculptures and raised works from amber.

A special significance in making highly artistic items was returning to the traditions of old German craftsmen of the 17th and 18th centuries. For this purpose a famous sculptor Hermann Brachert was invited for the position of an artistic advisor in 1930. His articles conjoined a combination of a harmonious splendor and constructive rationality of the Bauhaus school of design.

The same can be said about Jan Holschuh, Brachert’s follower. After becoming an artistic head of the Manufactory in 1933, he set an aim of widening the production programme and initially setting a high artistic standard for the articles. Under his leadership and on the basis of his designs, the Manufactory started making high quality and expensive household articles along with mass production.

Comes ready to be translated and displayed!