Anchor Stone Blocks

Anchor stones originated with the wooden building blocks designed by Friedrich Fröbel, the creator of the Kindergarten system of education.

To this end, they started production of a limited number of blocks, made of a mixture of quartz sand, chalk, and linseed oil.

The trademark "Anker" was used by various toy companies in East Germany, none of which were related to the stone building set factory.

With the support of the Club of Anchor Friends, the state of Thuringia, and the European Union, Georg Plenge was able to resurrect the company as Anker Steinbaukasten GmbH.

[5] In addition to construction sets, the artificial stone formula has been used to produce simple flat puzzles, such as tangrams.

Scientists, engineers, and designers like Max Born, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, Ivan Sutherland[6] and Walter Gropius developed their creativity by playing with Anchor blocks.

They appear in a fairly prominent role in Jan Švankmajer's fantasy film Neco z Alenky as, among other things, the home of the White Rabbit.