Imperial German reservist’s stein of Aegid Bleitfuls with rare Sniper thumb lift

Imperial German reservist’s stein of Aegid Bleitfuls, who served with the Royal Bavarian 18th Infantry Regiment, 8th company from 1905-1907. The 18th Royal Bavarian Infantry was established on April 1, 1881 and the regiment was attached to the II Royal Bavarian Corps. This particular stein is very unusual in that it has a thumb lift in the form of a sniper, whose rifle’s scope once contained a Stanhope, or miniature magnifying lens for a photo, both of which are now lost to time. I personally have never seen a thumb lift of this type before, either in any reference book or significant stein auction offering. On the sniper’s back pack are the initials “D.R.G.M.” which stands for Deutsches Reichsgebrauchmuster, meaning that the design was officially registered inside all of the German states, and amounted to copyright protection for this rare thumb lift configuration. This stein has some very minor color loss to the base ring, and some gold is worn away from around the regiment number. The rosters are also light with wear showing that this vessel saw some heavy use in the local gasthaus. No cracks, chips or other significant detractions are to be found on this rare example.
Landau was first mentioned as a settlement in 1106.The city was later occupied by the French from 1680 to 1815, when it was one of the Décapole, the ten free cities of Alsace, and received its modern fortifications by Louis XIV's military architect Vauban in 1688–99, making the little city (population in 1789 was still only approximately 5,000) one of Europe's strongest citadels. After Napoleon's Hundred Days following his escape from Elba, Landau, which had remained French, was granted to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1816 and became the capital of one of the thirteen Bezirksämter (counties) of the Bavarian Rheinpfalz. The familiar luxury open carriage called the "landau" was invented in the city.