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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

This black metal candle holder measures abt. 21-1/2" long and 9-1/2" high from the center top to bottom. Looks like a pair of Cossacks, crossed swords, various crafts people, and other things. Need help with identifying what country this was made in and what all the figures mean.

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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

I'd say it's a souvenir from somewhere in the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge, in German).  It has the pick and hammer, symbolizing mining, that appears on coats of arms in that area.  (The Ore Mountains being literally that.)   It has nutcrackers (not Cossacks) and a man carving wooden toys, both famous crafts in the Ore Mountains.  I can't tell what the woman is doing, perhaps sitting at a loom of some sort...?  There's an angel, perhaps representing the many Christkindl Markt traditions that originated in the region.  There's a tree, of course, for the forests, in the lower left-hand corner.  I can't tell what the thing in the lower right hand corner is.

 

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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

if the sticker is the original pricetag it is german.  the price is in deutchmarks which was the official currency until 2002. 

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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

I'd say it's a souvenir from somewhere in the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge, in German).  It has the pick and hammer, symbolizing mining, that appears on coats of arms in that area.  (The Ore Mountains being literally that.)   It has nutcrackers (not Cossacks) and a man carving wooden toys, both famous crafts in the Ore Mountains.  I can't tell what the woman is doing, perhaps sitting at a loom of some sort...?  There's an angel, perhaps representing the many Christkindl Markt traditions that originated in the region.  There's a tree, of course, for the forests, in the lower left-hand corner.  I can't tell what the thing in the lower right hand corner is.

 

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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

Thank you so much for your help.  I think you nailed it. 🙂

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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

Glad to help.  Just to satisfy my curiosity, can you tell what that is in the lower right-hand corner?  I just can't see it.

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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

This is said to be "Guild Symbol of Miners, Marienberg, Ore Mountains, Saxony":

 

guild-symbol-of-miners-with-hammer-and-swordsilhouettelautamarienbergore-M5JPH0.jpg


And  maybe what I called nutrcrackers are (as seen above and here) from the coat of arms of Marienberg (though they may well have inspired many a nutcracker, come to that):

Großes_Wappen_Marienberg_(Erzgebirge).png

 

 

 

 






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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

Here's a close up of the small figure...

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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

Well, heck, sorry, I still don't know what he is.  A miner?  Woodsman with an exe?  Lamplighter?   I give up.  Thanks for going to the trouble of letting me see him, though it was no help to you.

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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

You were a tremendous help and I thank you for all the information you came up with. 

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Need Help Identifying Black Metal Candle Holder Design and Country of Origin

I think the little figure on the right is probably a miner, with a pick, as guessed.

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