Richters Stone Anchor Building Blocks Box, 1890s, Set of 2

These are the original Richter’s Anchor Stone Building Blocks for kids produced by F. Ad. Richter & Cie, Vienna in the 1910’s.

The history of the Richter’s Anchor Box dates back to 1840 when German educator and founder of the first kindergartens, Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel invented wooden building blocks for kids. His aim was simply to develop children’s three-dimensional imagination.

In 1875, Gustav and Otto Lilienthal invented stones blocks made of pressed chalk, sand and linseed oil. These were much more stable and easier to stack together than the original Fröbel’s wooden blocks. This patent was later bought by Friedrich Adolf Richter and in 1880, in a small German town of Rudolstadt, Richter started the production of Richter’s Anchor Stone Blocks . Friedrich Richter took this matter very seriously and even set up an advisory group of local artists who were responsible for the design of the buildings, block shapes and also the drawings.

Richter’s Anchor Blocks gained a huge popularity and the factory gradually produced more than 1,200 stone shapes, creating a branching system of basic and extension kits. The golden period of Richter’s Anchor Stone Blocks was the end of 19th century / early 20th century. At that time it was sold all over the world.

The stone blocks are the colour of sandstone, brick and slate. The basic size of a cube is 25 mm, there are hundreds of shapes. The main concept is, that the buildings are created by stacking cubes carefully on top of each other, learning the rules of statics.

We offer two complete sets – a large one and a small one. Both sets come in their original wooden boxes with printed labels and they both includes original guidance books and with complete sets of blocks.

These particular sets comes from a family heritage and were bought in Brno (now in Czech Republic) at the beginning of the 20th Century, when Brno was still part of the Austro – Hungarian Empire.

Both sets are in good vintage condition. There is some wear and patina on the wooden box. There is also some wear and stains on the printed covers. Inside, some of the guidance books have a little damage such as tears and wear gained by their use over the years. The blocks are in very good condition, most of them remained intact and a small number has some minor wear.