Posted 13 years ago
Cincy323
(1 item)
I was at Goodwill looking for steins and there it was in the display case. It was dirty and really did catch my attention. I asked how much it was. Well $20 sorry but I'll pass so off to our local Chriskindle fest. There I saw a beer stein table set-up and a gentleman selling steins. I was curious about the old dirty stein so I asked. He became very very interested in what I saw. He wanted to know where it was. I felt pressed about the whole thing and would not tell him. At that piont he became less of a gentleman and more of a salesman. Well as the story goes, I had to work the next day so I had my wife go to Goodwill when it opened just hoping it was still there. Yes it was and she bought it for $10. It was half off day. We took it back to the festival and showed the man. I could tell he wanted it and offered $250 on the spot. He seemed upset when I told him "no". I took it to the Hofbrauhaus in Newport Ky. and spoke to the man that seats people. He is a huge collector but new little about it. He said its age was around 1870's. The lid is numbered for the owner to ID his stein. It has a combed finish and a hairline crack yet is still intact and does hold beer. I felt it deserved to be drank from at a Hofbrauhaus and that is where the photo is from. I contacted The real Hofbrauhaus in Germany and they too said it was old and that there are few left today and to not sell it.
So any info on this cool stein with a cool $10 story??
Thanks for reading and putting up with my grammer.
Mike in Cincinnati.
Pretty cool find you have there! I picked up a KGL at a thrift this week for a buck. You never what'll show up at these places. Good hunting to you!
"KGL" that helped with my search. Did not know this. Would love to see another pic of a similar stein.
I just posted pics of mine. It's much newer than yours, but I like yours better!! Enjoy
It looks like a Westerwald stein from my reseach thanks to crusaire's leads. This stein appears to be before HB made it's famous label with the crown. The lid is numbered with the owner's number of 10072. I would still like to see another one like it. To me it is the rarest HB stein I have seen. Please help. Enjoy and stay fluild.
Mike
Hi Mike,
I have 2 of these old steins like yours. I suspected the age prior to the logo with the crown. Mine have the HB engraved on the stein like yours but have different writing on the lids. It says Hofbrauhaus Keller. The numbers on mine are # 985 and # 1394. I collect Hofbrauhaus stuff and have a blog about it at http://hbsteins.blogspot.com/
Who did you get in contact with at the Hofbrauhaus about them? I would like to contact them about mine as well. I want to find out more about them and their age. Please e-mail about the steins.
Jordan, My email is mflorea@cinci.rr.com please email and I can send you the email from HB in Germany and will send you some better photos. I learned a little more this weekend from a stein collector. Mike
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the response. I sent you an e-mail to the account you listed above. There has got to be some way with the engraved numbers to pinpoint the year the stein was produced, or purchased by the person who bought it. Did the Hofbrauhaus say if they had any records of who got what # when?
When I was in the Army (26 yrs total) I was stationed in Germany from 1986 to 1990. I went through Checkpoint Charlie the weekend before the Berlin Wall fell. In 1989 I went to the Oktoberfest in Munich and bought a 400th Anniversary Hofbrauhaus Beer Stein at the Hofbrauhaus. It's one of the few steins I kept when
I sold most of my 50 steins after retiring.