Anchor Stone Blocks facts for kids
Anchor Stone Blocks (called Anker-Steinbaukasten in German) are special building sets made in Rudolstadt, Germany. These sets are like construction toys, but instead of plastic, they use pieces that look and feel like real stone. You can use them to build amazing miniature buildings.
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What are Anchor Stone Blocks?
Anchor Stone pieces are made from a mix of quartz sand, chalk, and linseed oil. This mix is pressed very carefully into molds. This makes sure all the pieces fit together perfectly.
The blocks come in three colors. These colors look like the real building materials used in Europe. You can find red, like brick, tan, like limestone, and blue, like slate. Because some pieces are small, these sets are not for children under 3 years old.
The History of Anchor Stones
How Anchor Stones Started
The idea for Anchor Stones came from Friedrich Fröbel. He created the Kindergarten way of learning. Fröbel noticed that children loved playing with wooden blocks that had different shapes.
Later, two brothers, Otto Lilienthal and Gustav, wanted to build a model of a stone building. They decided to make tiny stone blocks for this. So, they started making blocks from sand, chalk, and linseed oil. The Lilienthal brothers were great inventors, but they weren't very good at selling their blocks.
The stone blocks didn't become popular until 1880. That's when Friedrich Adolf Richter, a rich businessman from Rudolstadt, bought the idea. He paid a good amount of money for the rights and the machines.
Richter then created many different sets of these stone blocks. He advertised them a lot, and they quickly became very popular. In 1883, he sold 42,000 sets! In 1894, Richter gave them the name "Anchor." They became known as Richter's Anchor Stone Building Sets. Over the years, more than 600 different sets were made. There were also over 1,000 different stone shapes. When Richter passed away in 1910, it marked the end of the first big era for Anchor Stones.
Challenges and a New Beginning
Anchor Stones continued to be made even through World War I and World War II. But after World War II, the factory ended up in East Germany. This was a Communist country behind the Iron Curtain.
In 1953, the government took over the company. Then, in 1963, they stopped making the blocks completely. The "Anker" name was used by other toy companies in East Germany, but they weren't making the stone building sets.
Even though production stopped, old Anchor Stone sets stayed very popular around the world. In 1979, a group called the Club van Ankervrienden ("Club of Anchor Friends") started in the Netherlands. At first, only Dutch people could join. But after 1983, people from other countries could join too. Today, this club has about 230 members.
With help from the Club of Anchor Friends, the German state of Thuringia, and the European Union, a person named Georg Plenge was able to bring the company back. The factory in Rudolstadt started making blocks again on September 15, 1994. New sets were sold to club members just a month later.
Anchor Stones Today
The new factory now makes and sells all 15 sets from the main Anchor series. They also make special sets that let you build famous landmarks. These include the Michaelis Basilica in Hildesheim and the Brandenburg Gate.
You can easily find these sets in Germany, even in big stores like KaDeWe in Berlin. They are also available online. In 2012, a new series called Die neue Steinzeit ("the new Stone Age") was launched for younger children.
Anchor Stone sets can be expensive, but they are very high quality. Old sets are still just as fun to play with today as they were when they were first made. The new sets are made exactly like the old ones. This means you can easily mix and match pieces from different sets, even if one is very old and one is brand new! Besides building sets, the company also uses its special stone material to make simple flat puzzles, like tangrams.
Anchor Stones in Culture
Many famous scientists, engineers, and designers played with Anchor blocks when they were young. These include people like Max Born, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, Ivan Sutherland, and Walter Gropius. Playing with these blocks helped them develop their creativity.
Anchor blocks have even been shown in famous museums, like the Louvre and the Deutsches Museum. They also appear in movies and books. For example, they are seen in Jan Švankmajer's fantasy film Neco z Alenky (Alice) as the White Rabbit's home. They also play a part in the story of The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton.
Images for kids
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Anchor stones can be used to imitate many architectural styles, such as this Baroque palace.
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Anchor stones set #4
See Also
- Construction toy
- Building block
