Pre-Thimble Devices |
Based on archeological finds near Moscow, 30,000 years ago mammoth hunters created buttons
by drilling through pearls made of mammoth ivory. They fashioned bone rings to help them apply pressure while stitching
the buttons to leather garments. The modern concept of a thimble comes from the Etruscans living in what is today Italy. They made thimbles from bronze using clay casts. They were difficult to use because the high copper
content of the bronze discolored fingers and clothing. Thimble technology was brought to Germany when the Etruscans
colonized southern Germany about 2500 years ago. The first break-through in thimble technology came in the
15th century. Cologne copper smiths who made the thimbles up to this time, discovered that by throwing special
earth into the molten copper the finished thimbles would have a stable yellow color. However, the process created
a lot of foul smelling smoke so the copper smiths were forced to leave the town.
In Nürnberg the famous traveling doctor, Dr Paracelcus lived as a sub-tenant in the house of a copper smith. Very
curious as to why the copper turned yellow, he researched the problem and discovered that the special earth contained
zinc. In a short time, the process was refined to produce pure brass. From then on, the Nürnberg thimbles
were no longer cast as a whole but were made from stamped disks and metal strips that were bent conically. The new
thimbles were a big success world-wide. Everyone wanted the Nürnberg thimbles because they were better, more
comfortable, and cheaper. In order to keep the method of producing brass a secret, the town council of Nürnberg
prohibited its thimble makers -- a profession with apprentice, journeyman, and master craftsman -- from leaving the
town. For the next 200 years the secret stayed in Nürnberg.
Things changed with empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Angry that she had to buy thimbles made abroad from a place
with which she frequently waged war, she sent spies to Nürnberg to steal the secret of the thimble making process.
The spies returned with the plans but her copper smiths were unable to reproduce the process successfully. Not to
be put-off, she arranged for Nürnberg copper smith masters to be smuggled out of the town in a straw wagon.
Each master received his own house and garden. She built a thimble making facility in Vienna and broke the
Nürnberg monopoly. Only after his time was brass produced in Europe.
The next break-through in thimble making technology was the development of a device that permitted them to be
made by machine. The son of a master tailor in the town of Schorndorf near Stuttgart gave his father a silver thimble for a birthday gift. Having learned the silver smith profession, he recognized the most difficult
part of the work in producing the thimble. He experimented for six years before finally developing a device that
would do the work. Device in hand, he and his brother built a manufacturing facility and became the biggest
suppliers of thimbles in the world, the company Gebrueder Gabler in Schorndorf. They sold more than 4000 different
types of thimbles in 18 different sizes and kept an on-hand inventory of over seven million silver thimbles. Each
month one railroad car of thimbles was delivered to Russia alone. The company manufactured thimbles for 140
years until the heirs lost interest in the business.
Using all his money, My father bought the company and made it ready for production. Two weeks
after the publication of the product catelog a fire destroyed the entire plant. That would have been the end of
the thimble story except that my father collected the history of the thimble from many different sources with the
idea of someday publishing a book. We did publish it but part of the agreement with the publisher was that we
would take 1000 copies ourselves. The Fingerhut (Thimble) Museum was opened in 1982 to provide a means to sell our
1000 copies. The book is out of print for many years now but the Museum with its unique collection of thimbles
and thimble craft will soon greet its half-millionth visitor. There is a Fingerhutverein (Thimble Society) with
its headquarters in Creglingen. We have about 400 members from all over the world. Each year on the first weekend
in May the society meets for slide shows, a book market, and a new thimble. I create a special members only thimble
each year.
Today, if I ask a young women or girl who is visiting the museum to tell me on which finger she would put the thimble,
most have no idea.
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