N is for Nuts! Nutcrackers - Part One; New York Shelfies

I was literally just starting to collate nutcracker stuff for a foreseen post on their return, re-invention, restoration to prominence - whatever you call the phenomena - on my way to the Internet station (currently down) I use, only to find a bunch of these from Brain, who would send several lots in over the next week or two up to last weekend.

So, things spiraled as they do and we now have three posts which while not covering everything; will give a reasonable account of a set of figural 'things' that/who have been pretty-much absent from the blog - today looking at the wide variation in nutcrackers through Brain's shelfies.

So we start with the nutcracker equivalent of deforms or 'super-deforms'! These have deliberately short legs, short bodies and squidged heads to create short, fat nutcrackers, presumably for specialising in short, fat nuts - hazels?

These are more traditional in proportion, but flarxed-up with sequinned headdress'es, lace trim and fancy codpieces, I am reminded of Fanny the Wonder Dog!

Much more Christmassy; the God of the lollipop-stick on the left (see 'White Rod' - my new purchase - in part three), and clearly MacNutcracker on the right, or is it McNuttcraker, I think a massacre in Inverness is required to sort that out; yes - I listened to Mark Steel the other day!

I seem to recall we've had the camouflaged one before? News, Views, or Brain B last year? I'll have to find the post to add the new 'nutcracker' tag! He's compared to a very traditional drummer-boy one in 'Santa-scarlet', not available from Farrow & Ball . . . yet!

To the right is a fantastic post-modern, minimalist take on the nutcracker, this is almost a bare one, all the basic parts are there, sans hat or bearskin; it's just been given a coat of what looks to be gloss-white. Love it!

Here we see on the right some of the 'super-deforms' apparently attached to the hat of a more conventional nutcracker . . . "Shall I throw the green cannon-bauble of Antioch at the guests now, Mr. Scarramanga?"

While to the left; a priceless version with chefs coming out of their own cakes! The heavier base will allow for some serious leverage . . . Brazils' shouldn't be a problem for them, but it looks like they are powered novelties with little actual strenght? I suspect their lollipops may be real, sugary 'snacks' though!

Hummm . . . designer babe, least said - soonest mended; she doesn't even have the proper mouth!

Larger ones in more traditional layouts, Tyrolean musicians to the left, Bavarian guards types to the right, this is the size for a practical, actually use it for nuts, type!

This guy is looking particularly stern, he's also been clothed in starter-flags, while his hat has a weird Hibernian/Polish cavalry Officer vibe! Also he's unusual for having shoes and socks rather than high boots.

The reason I had started collection info. On these the same morning as Brian sent the first of the shelfies, was because these had all but disappeared by the late 1980's; you found the odd non-working, smaller one with hanger in peoples family collections of tree-decorations, and they were still a staple of tourist shops selling Erzgebirge in Southern Germany or Berlin (there was a lovely store full of this stuff in the Europa Centre down by 'The Zoo', and I remember a whole street of shops selling them in Bad Tölz in the 1970's. But - as far as British (and I suspect; other -) Christmases' are concerned - they had all but vanished.

Yet in the last few years they have multiplied like fungi on a forgotten silage clamp, and there is a tsunami of nutcrackers washing over the retail landscape like . . . err . . . a very big wave...

Now my theory for this is a simple one and I'm open to other hypotheses; namely, after the end of the Cold War (actually still healthily chundering-on in the background!) and reunification of the two Germanys, there was very real poverty in the Eastern portion of Germany and in the Former Czechoslovakia, and as a way of producing both jobs and cash, there was a re-vamping of craft-industries, including the wood-based ones, particularly those of the Erz (or 'ore') Mountains.

As a result of success in those ventures, and a triggering of the nostalgia button of Western consumers, they have caused this current plethora of nutcrackers, there may have been a smaller part played - particularly in the UK - by the likes of Lidl and Aldi shipping in sets of wooden decorations, a possibility backed-up by the apparent popularity of less 'Erzgebirge' wooden decorations using the new lazer-cutting techniques. Fashion says; wood's where it's at man!

Next - The Nutcracker Trail!