anvilfire.com Anvil Gallery

We start with this 5" long miniature anvil and tool kit because this is an anvil gallery. However, the Kremer miniature is much much more. It is an amazing example of Americana. It is a complete combination wheelwright and blacksmith shop with tools and machinery all made to approximately 1/8th to 1/10th scale.

The shop includes tools for several trades as well as work in progress and much of the typical shop clutter expected in a real blacksmith shop. There is a brick forge with single action bellows, a woodworking bench with a wood workers vise and a blacksmiths leg vise each area populated with small tools, pliers, saws, draw knives, chisels, tongs hammers, sledges. Besides the tools the building is to scale with windows and exterior scenes and wagon under construction or being repaired.

Paul Oscar Kremer Born Pinchus Lederkremer, occupation Painter, left Southampton, England, March 25, 1905 emigrating with his mother and younger sister to join his father who was living in Brooklyn. On the naturalization forms it states he was born in Warsaw, Poland July 1, 1884, and arried in NY in 1905; naturalized June 27, 1925. died Brooklyn, NY 1961)

He built up a very successful sign painting business in the 1920's in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY but was wiped out by the 1929 stock market crash. According to a newspaper interview in 1958, "after a couple of years of enforced idleness Kremer realized that he had to develop some sort of hobby to keep his alert brain and nimble fingers busy so in 1932 he started building a miniature wheelwright and blacksmith shop. Today, his model is believed to be the only one with moving parts. Throughout the years, except when he worked as a machinist for the Navy during World War II, he entertaining himself, his wife Sarah and his children and grandchildren with the remarkable scale model . . ."

His wife and children had a different view; the grandchildren, however, were indeed entertained.

The miniature workshop was complete by 1949 when it was shown in several hobby shows in New York, winning assorted citations and ribbons. His only other major project was a working windmill model but there were other smaller scale pieces including a wonderfully detailed miniature horse-drawn sled (1/20th scale?).

We thank Marty Kremer of Kremer Glass profusely for sharing this wonderful work with us.

If you did not know otherwise you would think the photo above was taken in a real shop.

A U.S. Quarter for scale. The coin is just a bit under 1" (25mm) in diameter. Some of the tools are not made to the same scale. The beautifully made pliers above are about twice the scale of the other tools.

Wheelwright's bench with wooden wood worker's vise and blacksmiths leg vise.

Hand forged miniature tongs and a 6" tall working Champion drill press with knurled chuck and twist drill.