25+1 Anniversary Exhibition: A Retrospective of Ameico Products
Tibor Kalman’s Designs & Gerd Klein
In early 1997, Gerd Klein of Hamburg, Germany, the licensee of Tibor Kalman and the owner of M & Co Labs International in New York, contacted Peter, whom he had heard about from a mutual acquaintance in Germany. Gerd was looking for a consultant to step in and turn around his US company. Peter was very thankful for the opportunity to have some income while still building his own business. The consulting gig led to Peter being able to acquire M & Co Labs and was the beginning of a business and personal friendship between Peter and Gerd which now goes back a quarter of a century.
Many of Peter’s products, especially in the initial years, such as the Piet Stockmans 7-in-1 nesting porcelain bowls, the Arnout Visser Fruit on Wheels bowl, the Antonia Campi paper scissors (design 1962), the Max Bill wall clocks (design 1956), the Kuno Prey bottle brush Xmas tree and the contemporary cuckoo clock – a huge success – originated in Gerd’s product “kitchen”.
Fly Swatters
Peter found samples of these in a design store in Tokyo, around 2010. The name of the designer was embossed on the back of the leather. From the Finnish trade council in NYC, Peter received a telephone number to call in Finland. The first call was not successful, as a lady picked up who only spoke Finnish. Peter thought he must have a wrong number, but the trade council could not come up with another number to contact. On the second call, the same friendly female voice answered again in Finnish. Despairing at how to proceed, Peter took his sample from Tokyo and started swatting his desk close to the receiver. The woman on the other end now understood why Peter was calling, gave him in broken German the telephone number of a girlfriend who spoke some foreign languages and that is how the business relationship got started. It has been an ongoing success. Determination can sometimes pay off. 😊
Parte Inversa
These were our first products 26 years ago. The designer Yakoov Greenwurzel, a silver smith from Jerusalem, presented these designs to Peter who, not knowing any better and eager to get going in business, went for them. Production turned out to be more difficult than envisioned. No manufacturer in the States would touch it. Finally Peter found a company in Brescia, Italy, Serafino Zani, who was willing to give it a try. Peter invested in the tooling and the first 500 sets of the salad servers were made. They turned out to be quite sellable, but Zani was not willing to produce any more due to the great difficulties in creating this first and only batch. Fortunately, Peter broke even on this project and more importantly, learned about the table top business and was able subsequently to acquire the US distribution rights to Pott cutlery from Solingen, Germany. One thing often leads to the next.
Swiss Army Flash Lights
Peter, as all Swiss males, served in the Swiss Army. On marches, often through the night, he became acquainted with the Swiss Army flashlight, the design of which dates back to the 30ies. Peter purchased all the vintage flashlights he could find in Army surplus stores in Switzerland and Germany. We could sell them here in the States very briskly, as US design shop buyers snatched up this design classic from us.
Angelo Mangiarotti Maritime Clock 1956
Gerd and Peter were introduced to Angelo Mangiarotti in 2002 at his old world Milan studio. From this first meeting a tradition evolved of get-togethers with Mr. Mangiarotti in his studio, usually during the annual April pilgrimage to Milan for the Salone Design Week. Together, Gerd and Peter re-edited Angelo Mangiarotti’s maritime table clock, which was very well received. Mr. Mangiarotti passed in 2012. We miss not seeing him anymore.
Y-Ply Folding Neck Rest
Y-ply was presented to Peter by a very attractive young French lady, the Structure floor lamp to Jeannette by two handsome young French lads. Both were absolute failures and we still have plenty of stock, collecting dust. Moral of this short tale: try not to let personal attraction cloud your business decisions, especially when a bit of money is involved.
Richartz Pocket Knives
Shortly after signing up Pott cutlery from Solingen for US distribution, it was not far to go to also pursue Richartz pocket knives, located in the same town. We were successful in obtaining the US distribution around 1997/8 and did quite well, especially with the picnic pocket knife, which comes apart for practical alfresco or office dining. 9/11 in 2001 brought this business to an abrupt halt. None of our customers wanted to deal in pocket knives anymore. The business never came back.
Eva Zeisel Lomonosov Porcelain Service
Eva’s daughter, Jean, approached us when Eva was still alive (age about 100) and inquired if we would re-edit the very fine bone China service, produced, as it was originally, in Russia at the Lomonosov Imperial Porcelain Company. We were delighted to be entrusted with such a prestigious project. Unfortunately, it was close to impossible working with the Russians and we managed, over the course of a year, to bring in a total of 12 sets in perfect quality and without breakage. 10 sets we sold almost immediately, one we gave to the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum as a present and fortunately, one we kept.
Brigitta Brun stoneware, circa 1998
Peter found these in a tabletop store in Zurich and fell in love with them. It took some doing to find the artist, living on a small island in Denmark. We started bringing in her wares and they sold well. The difficulties were communication (only by phone) and lead times. Brigitta was an avid sailor and on an annual basis she would close up shop and go sailing for months at a time. We also lost quite a lot of product to breakage in shipping. Brigitta would wrap her stoneware in dried out reeds she collected on the island.
Max Bill Timepieces
If any one designer represents Ameico’s DNA, it is the Swiss architect and design professor Max Bill, who was the first director of the Ulm Design School, the successor to the Bauhaus School in postwar Germany. His minimalist wall clocks and watches we represented for about 20 years and unfortunately lost the distribution a few years ago due to a change in ownership of the manufacturer Junghans in Germany. The table clock, design 1956, was from our own very limited production, due to a fall-out with Jakob Bill, the son of Max Bill. It is often difficult dealing with the heirs of great designers, who feel the need to make their own mark, albeit inferior.
Man Ray Chess Set
Man Ray, together with Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder and other modern artists, loved chess, and often played with his artist friends. They each designed their own set. Man Ray did his in 1920. In 2012, inspired by the book “The imagery of Chess – Revisited”, on display, we obtained the license from the Man Ray Trust to re-edit his design. The only original is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This set has been highly successful for us and our retail partners, limited only by the number of sets we are able to produce. The board and the pieces are, to a large extent, hand made in the Black Forest in Germany.
Design Letters
The 1937 typography from Arne Jacobsen is what got us initially sold on Design Letters. Clean-looking cups with attractive lettering, each user knowing whose cup is whose. What we didn’t consider is how difficult it is for retailers to have to keep 26 SKUs at all time in stock and how they would handle being sold out of only one or two letters, but not meeting our re-order minimums. The letter we put out on display is to give you a hint of how well this line did for us.
Brodmann Blades from 2009
Fredi Brodmann, a New York based Austrian designer and ping pong afficionado, approached us with his idea of revolutionizing the table tennis market with his glove-like paddles. We liked the idea and we liked him, so we went for it. Despite our efforts, which included a stand at the ISPO in Munich (the big sporting goods show), we completely failed. The only samples we could find are these used ones from Peter’s ping pong shed. In hindsight, what were we thinking?Brodmann Blades from 2009 Fredi Brodmann, a New York based Austrian designer and ping pong afficionado, approached us with his idea of revolutionizing the table tennis market with his glove-like paddles. We liked the idea and we liked him, so we went for it. Despite our efforts, which included a stand at the ISPO in Munich (the big sporting goods show), we completely failed. The only samples we could find are these used ones from Peter’s ping pong shed. In hindsight, what were we thinking?
Punkt.
The objective of Punkt is to bring everyday electric and electronic products to market, which are simplified to the essentials of what they were originally designed for. The mobile phone, for example, should only be a phone, not also a game station, etc. etc. The idea of going back to the basics and to possibly free the individual from all this technology, at least in one’s free time, is a great and noble one. The designer engaged for this task was Jasper Morrison, a highly successful industrial designer from London and Tokyo. Unfortunately, the technology was not thought through sufficiently and we were inundated with returns. A great idea – not so great execution.
Bauhaus Christmas Ornaments Design 1929, Edit by Us 2019
Peter found the originals in a Bauhaus auction in Munich three years ago, where he acquired them. We researched and found the designer Johannes Gabriel, an architect who studied at the last Bauhaus School in Berlin. We then took the originals to a wood turner in the Black Forest, who was able to faithfully reproduce them. A graphic designer friend in Zurich created the box and in short order we had a finished and highly successful product.
Baby Bell Rattle / Spoon
One day around 2008, when our office was still at 1 Church Street underneath the Hardware Store (now Village Arts Center) a fellow on a Harley pulled up, came in and introduced himself as Rob Butler, a silver smith. He brought along a sterling silver version of his Baby Bell, wondering if we were interested in producing in quantity and distributing. Peter told him to first try Tiffany and if they don’t bite, come back. A year later the Harley pulled up again and we made an agreement. Production was set up at Carl Mertens in Solingen, Germany and we reproduced Rob’s design in 18/10 stainless steel.
Airinum
Airinum was established five years ago in Stockholm with a mission to promote awareness of the quality of air we are breathing. The main target market has been areas with air quality problems of all sorts, caused for example through pollution or wild fires. We launched Airinum in January 2020, right before Covid-19 hit. We realized soon, by complete surprise, what a good business decision this had been. That year, we could not keep up with demand. We therefore all kept raising the order amounts. The second surprise came when our market for these FFP-2 masks suddenly came to a screeching halt, leaving us with much to much stock. Overall, Airinum was for us a business failure, despite the initial success.
Clack egg cracker
Soft boiled eggs are commonly eaten in Europe. Clack is an ingenious and very effective egg cracker: the stainless ball is dropped twice and creates a circular crack in the egg shell, allowing you to lift the top of the egg shell easily off the egg. Here in the States, it has never been a big seller (in its native Germany this one product supports a whole family), but it does have a loyal, albeit small US following since many years.
