Shafer & Vater Rudolstadt, Thuringia, Germany Established in 1890 by Gustav Schafer and Gunther Vater in the Thuringia region of southwest Germany, by 1913 this firm employed over two hundred workers. The original factory burned in 1918 but was restarted, and production continued until WWII. In 1972 the East German government took possession of the building and destroyed all of the molds and the records that were left. You will find pieces with the impressed mark of a nine-point star with a script “R” inside the star. On rare occasions you will find this mark in blue ink under glaze. The items are sometimes marked with a four-digit design number and a two-digit artist mark. In addition or instead, pieces may have ‘Made In Germany’ The company also manufactured items for sale under store names and those would not have the impressed mark. Schafer & Vader used various types of clays. Items made of hard paste porcelain, soft paste porcelain, jasper, bisque, and majolica can be found. You can find the jasper in green, blue, pink, lavender, and white. Nippers can be found in different sizes so I find that in most cases size is irrelevant and they are found in multi color, brown, blue and white. The glass nippers are dated from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s and most of the Porcelain or ceramic nippers are dated after 1900, the Japanese nippers are dated after 1921 . I believe the nippers with German text on them in most cases were not intended for export. By 1910 the American firm of Sears Roebuck & Company had begun to import and distribute Schafer & Vater pottery into the United States. |