On
the left is an Anchor Christmas card I received a few years ago from
Ad van Selms, Den Haag, Netherlands. He has made very interesting
use of poor quality stones; stones so worn that no Anchor builder
likes to use them. But in this application they look better than
first quality stones would look.
So, your Anchor friends everywhere wish you Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (with lots of "Anchor" in it).
Richter's Anchor Stone Building Sets (Richters Anker Steinbaukasten) were the world's most popular construction toy from the early 1880s through W.W.I. These building stones were made in Rudolstadt, Thuringia, Germany, (and at the company's branches in Vienna, New York and, possibly, St. Petersburg, Russia). Starting in 1880, Richter's Anchor building stones were covered by international patents and trademarks.
Today, there are many collectors and builders of Anchor Stone Building Sets. A number of them are members of the international Club of Anchor Friends (Club van Ankervrienden), a Dutch club with members from the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Great Britain and the USA.
Over 600 different Anchor Stone Building Sets were produced in a number of
different series. In addition Richter offered other "stone" products
such as puzzles and laying games.
Information on these building set
series is provided here, but one can e-mail me on other
Richter products. People who would like to know more about a specific
set, including value, or are only interested
in additional general information are urged to contact George Hardy (This page shows some of
my buildings.) by
e-mail. All e-mail
questions will be answered, to the extent of my knowledge.
This Christmas card came from Jan Hauer, who died earlier this year. He
was the most knowledgeable Anchor historian in the CVA. All Anchor
Friends are missed; Jan will be sorely missed by all who sought his
advice and corrections on the Alte Folge series of sets.
Please note that this home page is under constant revision. The graphics are JPEG, which improves quality and reduces file size. I have used the savings from this graphics format to enlarge some pictures.
New graphics, and additional text, are uploaded once a month, as close to the first as possible. So please plan to drop by monthly to see the new pictures. In the restricted (1.4M) space of my home page, I can provide only a limited view of the wonderful world of Richter's Anchor stones.
Other web sites with Anchor pictures and information:
new
Anchor factory in Rudolstadt, Germany, (in German and
English;
for whatever reason, the factory has no
e-mail address);
Anchor distributor in
the Benelux (in German, French, Dutch and
English);
Construction
Toys;
Lego on Long
Island;
Architectural
Toys.
For the month of December, 1996.
Anchor exhibitions being held in the next few months.
Anker-Steinbaukasten, auf deutsch. (in Zukunft)
Anker-Steenbouwdozen, in nederlands. (in toekomst)
Anchor Stone Building sets, in English. (default)
You are visitor number to the Club of Anchor Friends' home page since the posting date of . From the first appearance of the Anchor home page, August 30, 1996, there has been a steady increase in the number of people accessing it. Over the previous three months there have been about 560 visitors, with more than 240 during November. This revision is the fifth one that has been on the net. (My first effort was temporary and up only four days.) The Date and Time is . I plan to update this site monthly. It was last updated on .
Thank you for visiting my "Anchor" web site.
or you can write to:
George Hardy
1670 Hawkwood Ct.
Charlottesville, VA 22901
Tel: (804) 295 4863
Fax: (804) 295 4898
*******************************