The steam engines of Karsten Gintschel

Craft & Design Science
The steam engines of Karsten Gintschel
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Rog of Temple of Steam has this to say about elusive German artisan-machinist Karsten Gintschel:

These pieces are generally NOT available on eBay, in antique stores, flea markets or the other usual sources. Each example I have was either a private sale, purchased directly from the gent who made them or in a few cases from an online retailer representing the maker’s commercialized offerings.

How does something become a “collectible” when it’s newer than the car many folks drive including myself? I guess it happens when word of mouth demand is larger than the supply available. You see, these engines are all made by a young model steam engineer named Karsten Gintschel of Gintschel-Modellbau, in Cottbus, Germany, a part of former East Germany.

That was written in 2009. Rog has an impressive collection of Karsten steam engines, most of which seem to be based on the aeolipile. Gintschel-Modelbau now has a German-language website, but Rog’s page shows many older models not included there.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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