Two unequal equals
A little economics of the (former) GDR
I, Katja, was born and raised in the former GDR (East Germany) in the 1970s. Many of the beautiful vintage pieces that we offer today in our store are therefore still known to me from my own childhood. And so I also stumbled across these two orange bathroom stools, let's just call them Tim and Tom.
However, we both got them from different sources. Only here at our workshop has turned out that they are just not exactly the same: Tom's legs are 2 cm shorter. That surprised me a lot, because they are clearly the same model. And in the GDR, there were not - as there are today - many companies involved in design development and furniture production. So what was the reason for this difference?
After some thought, it was suddenly as clear as day to me and I remembered again: the GDR had to struggle with a lack of raw materials all its life. Hard currency as USD for purchasing on international markets was extremely rare. So there was always an big effort throughout the country to replace expensive (unavailable) materials with cheaper, available ones, or simply to save on materials. This explains the difference in size between Tim and Tom: Tim dates from the 1960s, while Tom was made in the 1970s, when the shortage of materials obviously became even more serious and a saving of 4 x 2cm per stool was already considerable.
But in any case, the two are an authentic conversation starter - even more so if you now know this story about it!
I, Katja, was born and raised in the former GDR (East Germany) in the 1970s. Many of the beautiful vintage pieces that we offer today in our store are therefore still known to me from my own childhood. And so I also stumbled across these two orange bathroom stools, let's just call them Tim and Tom.
However, we both got them from different sources. Only here at our workshop has turned out that they are just not exactly the same: Tom's legs are 2 cm shorter. That surprised me a lot, because they are clearly the same model. And in the GDR, there were not - as there are today - many companies involved in design development and furniture production. So what was the reason for this difference?
After some thought, it was suddenly as clear as day to me and I remembered again: the GDR had to struggle with a lack of raw materials all its life. Hard currency as USD for purchasing on international markets was extremely rare. So there was always an big effort throughout the country to replace expensive (unavailable) materials with cheaper, available ones, or simply to save on materials. This explains the difference in size between Tim and Tom: Tim dates from the 1960s, while Tom was made in the 1970s, when the shortage of materials obviously became even more serious and a saving of 4 x 2cm per stool was already considerable.
But in any case, the two are an authentic conversation starter - even more so if you now know this story about it!
As always, we welcome comments (below), questions and feedback!
Have a great weekend! Â
Katja & Dirk