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Ankerstein Baukasten (Anchor Stone building sets) exhibited at the Nuremberg Spielewarenmesse (Toy Fair) again this year with a booth in the "Made in Germany" section of Hall 3A. For Anchor Stone, production continues in the same city where the company started in the 1880s - Rudolstadt, Germany. For the 2019 Fair, the new Gropius set was featured in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus movement. And some children's sets are now packaged in wooden boxes.

The exhibition "Experience Industrial Culture - Innovative Thuringia since 1800" in Pößneck, Germany includes Anchor Stone building sets (Anker Steinbaukasten) that were first developed in Rudolstadt in the 1880s and are the first building toy system in the world. As part of the program, the famous Dresden church, Frauenkirche, was built from Anchor Stone blocks using more than 2000 stones.

Anker Steinbaukasten? Anchor Stone? Yes, and yes, as Anker translates to "Anchor" and Stein translates to "Stone". Baukasten can be broken apart to "building box" or "building set". So in German, the company and brand name is currently Anker and Steinbaukasten describes the product - stone building sets.

euroSource has been a retailer for Anker Steinbaukasten (Anchor Stone building sets), starting in 2003. At that time, Anchor products were sold through our eurotoyshop.com property which was a specialty toy shop offering a wide selection of European toy brands. That stint was eventually disrupted by the the negative impact the US CPSIA had on small European toy brands. Now we are back and this time featuring the Anchor product with a site and store all its own! It's the same product with a few additional branches to appeal to a younger audience.