HB Stein # 1204 -- A Unique Find

With limited time on my hands for my hobbies these days, I haven't posted in quite sometime. Last year, I purchased an interesting HB stein, which was numbered #1204. It is styled that I hadn't come across before or since. The stein body is etched with the trademarked Hofbrauhaus logo. What makes it different is that it is neatly etched in dark brown/black. The lid is the classic flat Kgl. HB lid with an acorn handle. Inside the lid the stein mark of W. Wild is present.

W. Wild produced a number of HB steins of various styles in the 1880s and 1890s. A couple of this are usually characteristic of his HB steins. The all have the same style of lid (classic Kgl. HB trademarked logo), the HB on the body almost always has a little line through the middle of the H, and on the body there is usually just HB with no crown. This particular style of his is the only style that I have seen where the crown is placed above the HB on the body.

My best estimate at a date for this stein would be in the 1890s. I am having a tough time pinpointng it more accurately than that. Wild appears to have been in business until 1898 when I believe the business was sold, and the stein mark on the inside is a very plain mark, rather than the more elaborate ones he used on some of the HB steins.

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