Product Code Database
The first business years, however, were marked by an economic crisis, and Anton Ullrich sought a second source of income. A carpenter, whom he had watched making a “yardstick,” gave him the idea of producing folding rulers. Thus the first ruler factory on German soil was founded. In 1855 Anton purchased a machine for grading measuring rods from the Paris World’s Fair.
Three years later, in 1858, he offered his younger brother Franz, four years his junior, a partnership, whereupon Franz joined the business. The range of products was gradually expanded. Among other things, cow and horse currycombs as well as tinware were manufactured (1868), and a tinning facility was put into operation (1869).
On September 10, 1886, the Ullrich brothers registered a patent for the spring lock on folding rulers, which made it possible to measure horizontally and vertically with folding yardsticks without them collapsing. Together, they are therefore regarded as the inventors of the folding ruler in the form commonly used today. At the Paris World’s Fair in 1889, the invention achieved enormous success.
In 1890, the company was transformed into a joint-stock company under the name Emaillier-und Stanzwerke vormals Gebrüder Ullrich as the Ullrich brothers parted ways that year. Franz Ullrich moved to Annweiler, where his son Gustav had already founded a ruler factory in 1889, which later developed into the company Stabila, which still exists today.
Anton Ullrich’s business was continuously expanded, so that in 1887 another enamel plant was established in Schifferstadt, among other places.
Due to the First World War, the company suffered severe economic losses, and ruler production was discontinued in 1918. After the death of Ullrich’s son August Ullrich in 1927, the company went bankrupt in 1928.
In remembrance of the Ullrich brothers, a folding ruler was erected as a work of art at one of the traffic roundabouts in Maikammer.
Publications
|
|
