by Robert E. Roentgen
Battenberg, 2007
ISBN 978-3-86646-013-3
The content of this book is simply useless, as there are tonnes of errors, repeated over and over again. I could not list them all here without copying a good part of the 320 pages. For example, many stamps with "West Germany" or similar are listed as "19xx until today" or similar, meaning that the book claims that stamps with East/West Germany designations were still in use more than 15 years after German reunification. A book that makes such historically incorrect statements cannot be trusted anyway, but this publication has many more errors and flaws, turning it into useless piece of trash.
Winterling Feinkeramik marks №·325 and №·330 are listed as "from 1972 until today" (the book was published in 2007!), but the fact is that the factory closed in 1995.
Mark №·427 for Oswald Lorenz is obviously misprinted as it is shown upside down; the initials "M" above a ligated "OL" stand for Malerei Oswald Lorenz.
Mark №·597 is not a mark of the Porzellanfabrik H. Schmidt but obviously a mark of Richard Klemm from Dresden.
There is no entry for the Christian Carstens KG, a porcelain decoration studio and porcelain factory which later became the VEB Gräfenroda, specialising in ceramics.
The history of Ernst Dorfner & Co. is incorrect and the datings shown for the marks from №·847 trough №·850 are nonsense.
Mark №·1031 for Henneberg has a typo, "1977-1900" should of course be "1977-1980".
Mark №·1033 is of course not a Henneberg mark, but quite obviously one from Zeh, Scherzer & Co. (Rehau, Bavaria).
Mark №·1134 for Rudolf Wächter is said to have been used from 1893, which is pure nonsense as the mark clearly states "Bavaria". The original decoration studio was located in Hüttensteinach (Thuringia) until 1913. Wächter then moved his business to Kirchenlamitz in Bavaria and joined forces with Erhard Fürbringer. The correct information is therefore that the mark shown was in use from 1914-1939, only the basic initials "R.W." were used earlier.
In the location text as well as the description of mark №·1193, Roentgen incorrectly uses the name "Albert Beck"; it was actually Adalbert Beck. He also failed to clearly separate and explain the mentioning of Garsitz, a small town located near Königsee, which was the location of the Riedeler factory.
Mark №·1274 shown as Martha Budich has long been proven to be that of Karl Klette.
For some reason, Roentgen did not include an entry for Oechsler & Andechser.
The year of foundation of R.&E. Pech is wrong: the factory was the successor of Gebrüder Kühnlenz, which was founded in 1884 and sold to R.&E. Pech in 1929, so production started in 1930 and not, as was claimed, in 1830.
Mark №·1281 for W. Mannl is obviously misprinted as it is shown upside down.
Roentgen did not include an entry for the company of Gisela Keilhauer. He also soes not include an entry on the original factory of Josef Franz Sieber, which was located in Schwarza an der Saale near Rudolstadt (Thuringia) before relocating to Küps (Bavaria), passing on business to Keilhauer in the process.
Marks №·1306 to №·1310 for Krister, all listed as "19xx until today" (book release 2007), are all incorrectly dated as the factory closed in 1971.
Mark №·1318 for Oscar Schlegelmilch is incorrectly dated as the St. Kilian mark is listed as having been registered 1904 and used between 1904 until 1914. The data I received from the city of Langewiesen as well as an older marks table of the factory itself clearly show that this mark was used between 1946 and 1949.
Mark №·1417 is not a mark of the Metallporzellanfabrik Deusch but obviously one used by Manfred Veyhl from Plüderhausen (Baden-Württemberg); you can even see the name Veyhl on the banner in the picture!
The entry on this town shows marks of the Mathes & Co. and Mathes & Ebel companies, mentioning that the original factory was the Porzellanfabrik Carl Schlegelmilch. Error number one in this entry is that Roentgen does not show any marks from the original factory. Error number two is that he misspelled the first name of Mr. Schlegelmilch : it's obviously spelled "Carl" and not, as claimed, "Karl".
Marks №·1507 and №·1507 of Drechsel & Strobel are said to have been used until 1908 and 1910 respectively, which is nonsense. Gebrüder Winterling had taken over the company in 1903 and apparently only used their own marks from then on.
Marks №·1531 to №·1534 of Kerafina GmbH, all listed as "19xx until today" (book release 2007), are all incorrectly dated as the factory closed in 2002.
The company dates of Jaeger, Thomas & Co. and later Jaeger & Co. are completely messed up. The company was founded in 1872 (not 1898), Thomas left in 1898 (not 1902) and opened his own factory in 1903. Roentgen also states that Jaeger Porzellan GmbH was still in business (book published in 2007), but the factory actually closed in 1986.
The description of mark №·1520 includes the passage "... for deliveries to US importer George Borgfeldt in New York ..." which is total nonsense as the initials G.H.B.Co. stood for the company of George H. Bowman from Cleveland, Ohio.
Mark №·1522 is not a mark used by Porzellanfabrik Jaeger & Co. but obviously that of Wilhelm Jäger (Eisenberg, Thuringia). The dating is also wrong: the mark shown was actually used between 1911 and 1920.
Mark №·1922 is obviously not a mark used by Meißner Porzellanfabrik PGH but a mark used by its successor, the MPM Saxonia Kunsthandwerkliche Porzellanmalerei. The dating is also incorrect; the mark shown was actually in use between 1991 and 1993.
There is no entry for the decoration studio of Leni Parbus and her successor. As Roentgen lists other decoration studios it is strange that the prominent Parbus studio is missing.
Mark №·2076 is correctly attributed to Marcus & Co. but is incorrectly placed between marks of Greiner & Herda and Greiner & Herda's successor, the Porzellanfabrik Neuerer. Marcus & Co. had nothing to do with either of these companies and should have been given its own entry rather than being sandwiched between them.
The text under mark №·2273 of Max Roesler wrongly claims that the company in Rodach was a subsidiary of the Aelteste Volkstedter (Volkstedt, Thuringia) from 1925 onwards. This is complete nonsense; neither the extensive documentation on Aelteste Volkstedter nor the information on Roesler supports this claim. The only connection between the two companies is that the Max Roesler company bought the former Großherzogliche Keramische Manufaktur in Darmstadt from the Aelteste Volkstedter.
Mark №·2859 for Rudolf Kämmer is incorrectly dated: the KSK mark was only used by the predecessor company Kämmer & Kramer, based in the town of Schwarza, between 1946 and 1953.
Mark №·2322 is shown here a second time, incorrectly attributed to Rösler Porzellan & Keramik. As can be seen in this group of marks, it is a misplaced copy of mark №·2314 from Porzellanfabrik G. Greiner & Co..
Mark №·2334 is wrongly attributed to Lorenz Reichel. RWZR registration №·12·789 from June 20th 1895 clearly shows that it belonged to A.W.F. Krister (Scheibe-Alsbach).
Marks №·2378 and №·2379 for Bauer & Pfeiffer are incorrectly dated. The marks shown were in use until 1934, not 1918 as stated.
Roentgen did not include an entry for Josef Franz Sieber's company here, nor did he mention that this company moved to Küps (Bavaria) after the Second World War and then became the studio of Gisela Keilhauer.
Marks №·2433 and mark №·2436 for Heinrich & Co. are the same, both in mark and dating (obvious misprint).
All the mark datings in the Al-Ka / Alboth&Kaiser / Kaiser entry are completely messed up, e.g. mark №·2618 is said to have been used between 1926 and 1953, when the whole design is obviously from a later period. The company's official trademark reference clearly shows that it was in fact used between 1967 and 1970. In other words, the entire Roentgen entry for this company is useless.
Mark №·2633 comes with a description of the Wiefel company from Steinbach bei Sonneberg (Thuringia), which is correct in itself. However, the mark shown belongs to Gerhard Knopf from a completely different town, Steinbach an der Haide, which is now part of Ludwigsstadt (Upper Franconia).
Mark №·2652 is fake! The factories of Reinhold Schlegelmilch (founded in 1869) and Erdmann Schlegelmilch (founded in 1861) were not related and stood in opposition to each other. And still Roentgen claims that the mark shown is the 50th anniversary mark of the Erdmann Schlegelmilch factory, using Reinhold's basic R.S. wreath mark but adding both names. It should be quite obvious that this mark is a bad fake.
Mark №·2714 depicts a capital "P" in front of a sunburst, dates it between 1922 and 1935, and erroneously claims that it was used by Carl Hans Tuppack. However, the mark shown belonged to his predecessor, the Schlesische Porzellanfabrik Tiefenfurt, and as such must be dated between 1916 and 1919.
Mark №·2715 shows "Tuppack" above a crowned "S" and "Tiefenfurt" and claims to have been used between 1922 and 1935. However, the mark shown is the earlier version (1919 - 1922), as the version used between 1922 and 1935 also included the term "Echt".
Mark №·2725 shows a wreath mark of Kuno Steinmann, which is said to be the "50-year company anniversary mark used since 1933". That is not quite correct: it was the company's 65th anniversary.
The first period of the Porzellanfabrik Tirscherneuth is incorrectly listed as "1938 - 1880" when it should be "1838 - 1880".
Mark №·2775 is said to have belonged to A. Porzelius, who allegedly used it between 1881 and 1891. Both claims are nonsense, as the mark was introduced during the merger of the companies named Aelteste Volkstedter Porzellanmanufaktur und Porzellanfabrik Unterweißbach vormals Mann & Porzelius AG and was used between 1901 and 1936.
There is no entry cobering the business of Hans Schwägerl & Sohn or its successor, Porzellan Schwägerl GmbH.
Mark №·2800 is incorrectly claimed to have been used by the company Ackermann & Fritze. In fact the mark shown was registered by Ernst Bohne Söhne (Rudolstadt) as RWZR №·114·951 on February 2nd 1909.
Hermann Ohme's factory was located in Niedersalzbrunn, while his decoration studio was in Waldenburg.
The company founded by Johann Haviland was first taken over by the Italian Richard-Ginori Group 1924 and then sold to the Rosenthal group in 1937. It remained operational as Rosenthal subsidiary until its closure in 1978, hence the mark runtime datings for №·2917 (1928-1998) and №·2919 (1966-1998) are complete nonsense; it was the dormant registration which finally expired in 1998.
Mark №·2989 of the Porzellanfabrik Christian Seltmann is incorrectly dated; it was used between 1924 and 1946 (not 1954-1948). Also note that the version used between 1946 and 1949 would of course include the US Zone addition. Mark №·2992 also shows a wrong date range, Seltmann says it was only used in the 1920s and not, as claimed, "1954 until today".
Mark №·3062 is incorrectly claimed to have been used between "1907 until today" and "around 1924 on porcelain". The mark shown was in fact used between 1907 and 1928, and only on porcelain.
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