By Isla Quinn
Hold the star up and count. Twenty-five, the sources say. Or twenty-six. Or twenty-four and one free. That is the first thing worth knowing about a star that began as a school lesson.
A lesson in geometry
The Herrnhut star, an Advent star from Upper Lusatia in Saxony, was born in a classroom. The German Patent and Trade Mark Office says a teacher built a red-and-white star of paper and cardboard in the early nineteenth century to teach geometry, in the community of the Herrnhut Brethren, founded on 17 June 1722. The Protestant church’s news site, evangelisch.de, says a mathematics teacher had boarding-school pupils of the Moravian Church make the first ones, and that for years the stars were a private craft, made at home as gifts.
Where, exactly, is not settled. Wikipedia says the first known star appeared in the 1830s at the Moravian boys’ school in Niesky. A Bavarian Protestant weekly, Sonntagsblatt, says the first one was probably made in Niesky, about 50 kilometres from Herrnhut. The patent office and the news site give no town. We set the three side by side and keep to “early nineteenth century” and “probably Niesky”.
The bookseller
Pieter Hendrik Verbeek, a book and music dealer, lived from 1863 to 1935, evangelisch.de says, and sold the first stars in his shop in 1897. The patent office says that at the end of the nineteenth century he invented the first stable, assemblable star, with a perforated metal body that could ship flat, and that he applied for a patent in 1925. It says “applied” and does not confirm the patent was granted. Sonntagsblatt says he filed in 1925 and that this model matches the present form. Wikipedia calls him Peter Verbeek and says his son Harry founded the Herrnhut star factory, and that the original form has been made in Herrnhut since 1897 by the Abraham Dürninger company. That detail appears only there.
How the points are counted
| Source | What it says about the points |
|---|---|
| Patent office | 25 points: 17 square, 8 triangular |
| evangelisch.de | 25 points: 17 square, 8 triangular |
| Wikipedia | 26-point form with one point missing for mounting; 18 square and 8 triangular |
| Sonntagsblatt | 25 points: 17 square, 7 triangular; the 26th corner stays free for the lamp cable |
Four sources, three arrangements. The 25 is common ground. After that, the counts of square and triangular points do not add up the same way, and the summaries we read may have compressed what the pages say. Our reading: the star is a 26-cornered form whose last corner holds the cable, so 25 are visible. Two sources support that reading, but the arithmetic in the third does not, and we do not settle it.
What it is made of
Evangelisch.de says paper stars are folded, glued and assembled by hand, and plastic points for outdoor versions are formed by machine. Sonntagsblatt says plastic stars joined the range in 1982, that the points are fastened to a cardboard frame, and that the star ships in separate parts and is assembled by the buyer. It says a two-person team can make up to 3,500 points in a day. The regular paper range has five sizes, from 13 to 80 centimetres across, according to evangelisch.de.
Colour
The first stars were red and white, evangelisch.de and the patent office both say. We do not describe the symbolism the news site attaches to the colours, which is religious interpretation and not a fact about the object.
When it hangs
Wikipedia says the star is displayed from the first Sunday in Advent until Epiphany, 6 January. It also says the stars are used in the Frauenkirche in Dresden and the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, and in regions where Moravian missionaries worked.
Evangelisch.de names two big commissions: a 2.50 metre star in the Federal Chancellery since 2010 and a 1.90 metre star for a cathedral in Kyiv in 2014. Sonntagsblatt says only six stars of 2.50 metres are known worldwide. The two pages are not obviously in conflict, and we do not push them further.
Not every star is a Herrnhut star
Wikipedia warns that Froebel stars, made from folded paper strips, are sometimes wrongly called Moravian stars. A folded paper star is a lovely thing, and it is a different object.
Numbers that move
Annual output is given as about 700,000 stars by evangelisch.de and the patent office, and about 600,000 by Sonntagsblatt. Staff numbers are given as about 200, 140 and more than 90. The three pages are different ages and we do not know which year each describes. The patent office says the company restarted in 1991 as a limited company with 23 employees.
Dates in order
- 17 June 1722: the Herrnhut Brethren’s community founded, according to the patent office.
- Early nineteenth century: a teacher’s geometry star, according to the patent office and evangelisch.de.
- 1830s: the first known star at Niesky, according to Wikipedia.
- 1897: Verbeek sells the first stars in his shop, according to evangelisch.de and Sonntagsblatt.
- 1925: Verbeek applies for the patent, according to the patent office.
- 1982: plastic stars added, according to Sonntagsblatt.
- 1991: the company restarts as a limited company, according to the patent office.
Questions a buyer would ask
How many points does it have, and does the seller count them the way the maker does? Is it paper or plastic? Does it ship in parts, as the genuine ones are said to? Sonntagsblatt says the maker sells only through about 1,800 retailers and not DIY stores. Is the seller one of them? The patent office lists two registered trade marks, without saying what they cover, so ask what the seller thinks the marks protect.
What kind of sources these are
A national patent office, a Protestant church news site, a regional church weekly and Wikipedia. Three of the four are close to the Moravian world or to the maker’s story, and none is an independent audit. We read no manufacturer page.
What we left out
We left out the stories of the factory’s fortunes in the twentieth century, a symbolism claim about the colours, the sums, the staff stories and the claim about which parts of the world the maker will not supply. We named no retailer. We found no source that tells you how to spot a fake, so we give questions and no tests.
Roam first. Shop later.