Ghosts of Wagner Ornaments Past

Happy 2019, everyone! 2018 ended with Google grumbling at me about whether or not I wanted to keep this blog up and running, and lectured me about analytics and stuff, completely disregarding the fact that sometimes things like, oh, Jobs and Life and Weddings and stuff get in the way of pursuing one's hobbies. So while I'm in the spirit of making new year's resolutions and the like, I'll make a timid vow to breathe some life back into this site...

As I haven't yet packed away the Christmas ornaments, I thought I'd focus on an odd little discovery I made in recent years while noodling about online: I found some newly manufactured ornaments that appear to have been made using Wagner molds or at least were inspired by them.

Check out this squirrel, for example:

Sure looks a lot like Wagner's squirrel, which came in brown and gray and sometimes had a ribbon added to turn it into a Christmas ornament.

There was also a brown, glittered-with-snow version:

I found a reindeer, too, but failed to capture an image of it. However, I did order the squirrels, as well as this hedgehog, whose bristles are likewise bedizened with glitter:

The squirrels were quite nice, though the hedgehog lacked the charm of Wagner's mischievous version, and its legs were set in a 'walking' pattern rather than the solid foursquare stance of the original.

I bought them on the Lord & Taylor website a few years ago, and thought of them as I happened to walk past the flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York City a few weeks ago, which was closing down as the building had been sold. The Hudson's Bay Company of Canada owns Lord & Taylor, and the ornaments were made by Gluckstein Home, with a tag that says they were manufactured in Germany.

I vaguely recall writing to them a while back but didn't get a reply. I imagine that the old Wagner workshop in Germany must surely have a huge supply of molds from throughout their history, and often wonder what will happen to them and if they'll ever be used again.