THE SAMPLE CARDS OF THE REDLHAMMER AND MAHLA COMPANIES
In 1913, the Technical Museum for Art and Industry in Vienna received a “collection of
samples ofporcetain beads and buttons”as a gift from the Redlhammer Brothers Company
in Gablonz. The sample cards from the Mahla Brothers probably came at the same time.
Both Companies were strongly export oriented. While Redlhammer also made its “porcetain
beads” itself, Mahla was concerned with the export business that was essential to the
existence of the entire Gablonz industry.
“... the exporter - that’s what the current terminology calls the glass publisher - takes over the
new samples given him by the people hoping to work for him (“Gürtler,” glass molders, glass
Spinners, etc.) or he has such samples taken up by them through his own people, specifically the
so-called sample makers and sees to It that they reach customers, chlefly forelgn trading Com
panies, either directly or through traveling salesmen, as a help In making a cholce and ordering.
Also sometimes such customers even send In a sample of outside origin, whereupon the ex
porter has the desired amount made.
As a rule, the sample, for which Orders are placed, requires the work of several departments of
workers... Between him and the different producers there is the supplier. With him, the exporter
settles on the price of the wares to be delivered, based on specific samples and the time of the
handover (delivery) ofsuch wares; the remaining ‘how’ and ‘what’ in regards to production do not
concern him. The supplier either limits himself to actual delivery without personally having a part in
the production, orhe owns a workshop, a cutting or molding works ora ‘Gürtler’ workshop orsome-
thing similar. In the former case, he is strictly a middle man who supplies the raw glass, which is
made in the glasshouse or bought from a merchant, to the molder and then the cutter for further
Processing, negotiating the wages with each one and finally delivers the finished wares to the pur-
chaserat the prices made out with him beforehand... "(Bräf 1882, according to Lilie 1895, p. 198).
“The wares produced by the glass and metal notions industry, are not placed on the market by
the producers themselves, but by the export trade ... It can even be said that without the export
trade the so very important economic upswing would never have come about. At present there
are some 150 export Companies in the district. The biggest of these are considered to be: in crys-
tal wares, the Company of Eduard Dressier; in buttons, the Mahla Brothers Company; in bijouterie
wares that of W. Klaar; in beads the Company of J. H. Jeitele’s Son ...
The sample-makers division does not by any means make all the necessary samples itself ...but
it procures them for the purpose ofplacing them on the sample cards (collections) it compiles, but
the sample specialists do in exceptional cases, also carry out independent designs and make
new samples. Working out the prices, the tasteful arrangments on the sample cards, fastening,
etc., require additional labor...” (Lilie 1895, pp. 197, 198).
Around the turn-of-the-century, the Mahla Brothers Company (founded in 1878) owned an
export house in Gablonz a.d. Neisse, a “Factory of Glass and Metal Buttons, Crystal Wares
and Glass Notions”\n Morchenstern, a wood pulp factory in Pasek, had branches in Berlin,
Paris and London, and representatives in Vienna, Frankfurt and Hamburg. 300 workers and
120employees worked for them around 1900 (Adressbuch 1900, p. 117), around 1910
there were some 500 workers (Hanel 1/1910, p. 194).
Although not all of the original cards are preserved, the sample cards from Mahla give a
good overall view of Gablonz beads; little bugles and drawn beads (ill. 304, 305, pp. 352,
353) made of crystal glass (which can be lined with color) and colored glass; solid beads in
round and oval shapes, smooth or facted or ornamented, most of them probably press-
molded beads (ills. 306-313, pp. 354-359); Atlas beads in different colors (ills. 314, 315,
pp. 360, 361), hollow beads with color and silver linings (ills. 317, 318, 324, pp. 362-363,
368), fine gold beads (topaz glass with silver linings, ills. 316, 319, pp. 362, 364) and the
beautiful real gold beads (crystal glass with gold lining) with molten (“warmed up”) openings
(ills. 320-323, pp. 364-367). The measurements are given in numbers, lines or millimeters;
the size of the 0-bead sometimes corresponds to the norm (2 lines = ca. 4.50 mm.), but
sometimes also deviates from it; the measurements in millimeters are only approximate
values (the beads are usually smaller).
300
