What are nutcrackers all about, what do they mean, and how can I be sure to collect only the best ones?  And where is the Erzgebirge, anyway?  If you're only now discovering the wooden handicrafts of the Erzgebirge, you are in for a treat.  The Erzgebirge, a moutainous region along Germany's border with the Czech Republic, was off limits to western visitors until 1990.  As an American living in West Germany in the 1980's, I was fascinated by store displays of lovely wooden Christmas deocrations imported from East Germany.  These included not only nutcrackers, but candle carousels turned by horizontal propellers, pipe smoking figurines that burned incense, angel musicians with the sweetest faces; and of course, nutcrackers. 

The Village of Seiffen, the heart of the Erzgebirge Christmas Craft tradition.  When in 1996 I finally visited the Erzgebirge and the picturesque village of Seiffen, with its unusual Baroque octagonal church, above, I discovered that many family workshops had survived the better part of a century, working in a decorative tradition unbroken since the mid-1800's.  I also discovered that Seiffen is the birthplace of the Christmas nutcracker that we know and love, the product of the Fuechtner family, and marveled that the region was unknown to even the most ardent American Christmas collectors.

Above:  Typical Erzgebirge Crafts include nutcrackers, smokers, and angel and miner figures holding candles.  As I began collecting, I discovered that older nutcrackers on ebay were styles that are still being produced today.  Contemporary wholesale catalogues, by the way, are a useful identification guide to vintage pieces, because models have been produced by the same workshops for decades.  Below, some of the oldest nutcrackers are from the Fuechtner family workshop, still in existence.  These are in Seiffen's Erzgebirge toy museum.

The nutcrackers below are timeless designs--these were all made in the 1980's, now consider vintage because they predate German unification.  Though they look old, nearly all the vintage German nutcrackers found in the US date from the 1960's at the very earliest.  Surprised?  It may astonish fans of the ballet to learn that the nutcracker as a Christmas theme is an entirely postwar phenomenon.  The ballet was first performed in this country in 1944, and it soon became a holiday staple.  By the 1960's and '70's, 80% of the nutcrackers produced in the Erzgebirge were exported to the US. 

In 1968, the Expertic trade association was formed, responsible for marketing and exporting much of the Erzgebirge Christmas crafts to western countries.  The Expertic label, found on most vintage nutcrackers, dates the piece as 1968 or later.  Lack of the Expertic label does not necessarily mean that the nutcracker is older, because there were workshops that were not a part of the Expertic system.