Word: porcelain
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Nowadays Meissen is earning funds for another hard-pressed ruler. At the close of World War II, the shattered Meissen factory fell to the Soviets, who-while carting off so many other factories as "reparations"-shrewdly set about getting the porcelain works back into production as quickly as possible. Though workers in other East German plants have usually been bullied and ideologically "reformed" by Communist bosses, the 900 Meissen workers have been left in relative peace to do their jobs in the painstaking traditional way. As a result, while most East German goods are hopelessly shoddy, Meissen china has retained...
...turn base metal into gold. In 1709, Johann Friedrich Böttger, an alchemist employed by Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, hit upon something almost as good as gold: using wig powder as a base, he produced Europe's first true porcelain. To keep the secret, Augustus shut Böttger up in a dank castle in the Saxon village of Meissen and told him to produce china without ever letting any single employee learn the entire formula...
Ever since, the translucent, richly decorated porcelain turned out by the Meissen works has been one of Europe's most prized and best-paying products...
Every day Sotheby secretaries clip the obituary pages of the London Times and send along the pertinent stories to the nine directors for porcelain, jade and Eastern art, medals and coins, manuscripts and so on, who must estimate the art-sale possibilities of the estate. Wilson himself has the reputation of being able to hear "a death rattle before the doctor is called." Actually it is largely Wilson's aristocratic soft sell and impressive presence (he is 6 ft. 4 in. tall) that brought to Sotheby's such tasks as the record-breaking Goldschmidt collection sale...
...Because of its high wages, the U.S. is behind competitively in products that require a large amount of labor, notably consumer and precision goods, such as transistor radios, cameras, porcelain, cutlery, shoes, rugs, bicycles, small tools...