Category:Heinrichsen of Nuremburg

The lead toy business founded in Nuremberg by Ernst Heinrichsen () in 1839 continued to produce lead figure designs for almost exactly one hundred years, until December 1938, when Ernst's son Ernst Wilhelm Heinrichsen died. Over the century, the family-run business produced over 16,000 designs. The company's range also absorbed over a thousand moulds bought in from Gustav Söhlke

"Nuremberg scale"

Heinrichsen are credited with popularising "Nuremberg scale" for flat lead figures, which was about ~28mm from ground to eye level, and is also popularly known as "3cm scale".

Manufacturing process

The flats were first drawn on slate or drawn and transferred, and then the shapes carved out of the material, front and back. This meant that the main design process was essentially two-dimensional, and a skilled artist could produce designs as quickly as they could draw, with the mould-carving being delegated to another person if necessary.

Although the production of the moulds was simpler than with more fully three-dimensional mouldings, the production of the figures from slate moulds would have been more fiddly and less amenable to mass-production, which probably encouraged the creation of a larger number of different moulds for each set, and less reuse of designs than one would otherwise expect. The result seems to have been a vast number of individual designs.

Generations

• Carl Peter Ernst Heinrichsen (1806-1888), known as Ernst Heinrichsen
• Wilhelm Leonhard Ferdinand Heinrichsen (1834-).
• Ernst Wilhelm Heinrichsen (1867-1938)

Timeline

• 1826-1832 – arrives in Nuremburg and works engraving slate masters for the firm of Ammon
• 1829-1832 – Bossier and Modeling School or Polytechnic School Freelance toolmaker/engraver
• 1839 – obtains a licence to make cast toys, and opens a factory at Zisselgasse p 388 (Albrecht Dürer Street 21)
• 1850 – Albrecht Dürerstrasse S. 388. Wins a medal at the Industrie Austellung zu Leipzig 1850.
• 1853 – Marienvorstadt No. 20
• 1854 – Tsar Nicholas I orders sets representing the Russian Regiments, which are well received. Awarded a medal at a Munich exhibition.
• 1859 – Schmitt's toy store in Berlin presents the Prussian royal family with a representation of the ranks of the entire Prussian army, authored by Wilhelm Heinrichsen.
• 1862 – Ernst Heinrichsen becomes a registered company

In The Museum

External links

• Heinrichsen Flat Lead Miniature Toy Soldiers or "Zinnfiguren" (planetdiecast.com)
• Ernst Heinrichsen (lilliputworld.co.uk)

museum collections

• V&A Museum: Battle of El-Teb (collections.vam.ac.uk)