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Impressed symbol of a farm house over "T" above "C", no windows, "Germany" only.
The Carstens family originally started out in the wholesale ceramic supplies business, founded in Elmshorn (Schleswig-Holstein) in 1878. By the beginning of the 1930s, Carstens Kommissionsgesellschaft had become one of the leading distributors of ceramic supplies. By 1940, the company owned facilities in Rheinsberg, Wallhausen, Creussen, Hirschau, Gräfenroda, Georgenthal, and the well-known stoneware facility in Uffrecht, Neuhaldensleben. This was followed by the Tönnishof facility. Incidentally, the name "Tönnishof" is not the name of a town or city; it is the name of a former farm located in the small town of Moringen-Fredelsloh.
After the Second World War, various industries were relocated or reinstated to create jobs in the surrounding area. The Carstens company, which had lost most of its facilities during the war, was no exception, and so the old Tönnishof farm became a new starting point for one of the former pre-war leaders of the German ceramics industry.
To cope with the high demand for kitchenware after the war, the Carstens family invested all their expertise and reactivated old pre-war contacts and business lines. This paid off, and by 1950, the company had returned to fourth place in the list of German ceramics manufacturers, even managing to open a subsidiary in Freden.
This huge effort did not go unnoticed by other companies, and in 1953 the Carstens family signed a contract with the Goldscheider company, based in Vienna, Austria. This contract allowed Carstens to manufacture Goldscheider's figures under licence. As the company expanded, licences and business relationships with companies from Chile, Argentina, Austria and Australia followed, resulting in peak output of 10,000 units per day, manufactured in an area of 15,000 m².
After a few years and many bad decisions, the company was struggling with cheap imports and an ever-changing market. It lost one contract after another and ran into financial problems. Initially, it seemed that the attempt to save the company would succeed, and the remaining workers slowly started to hope that better times lay ahead.
Rather than learning from past mistakes, disputes and endless discussions between members of the Carstens family sent the struggling facility tumbling back into oblivion. Unable to cope with the situation any longer, many workers and designers finally left, resulting in a last-ditch attempt to save both the facility and the remains of the Carstens group.
But it was too late; the family disputes had finished the job that ignorance, poor decision-making and market opposition had started. The Tönnishof facility, the initial trigger of disputes between Carstens family members, and ironically the last remnant of the former Carstens empire, finally filed for bankruptcy on 1977-04-28. Soon afterwards, members of the Kiel family (all former employees of the facility) took over part of the farm, and started to operate a small pottery studio and shop there.
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Impressed symbol of a farm house over "T" above "C", no windows, "Germany" only.
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Embossed symbol of a farm house over "T" above "C", with windows, "W.-Germany".
(Picture by www.ginforsodditiques.com)
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"Carstens" above "Tönnieshof" above "Qualität" and "West Germany".
(Picture by Monika Birkl)
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This is the newer sticker version in silver, simply "Tönnieshof" over "Carstens" and "W-Germany".
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And this picture of course shows the golden version of the same sticker.
(Picture by www.ginforsodditiques.com)
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Wide version of the "Cartstens Atelier" sticker.
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Condensed version of the "Cartstens Atelier" sticker.
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And here a matching paper "Cartstens Atelier" tag.
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