ROEDENTAL, Germany (AP) – Ceramics craftsman Udo Troeger labors on a porcelain figurine at the M.I. Hummel factory, working alone under low-hanging fluorescent lights. A blaring radio fills the silence amid rows of empty desks.

That Troeger, or anyone, remains at work represents progress for Hummel. The 74-year-old line of sentimental porcelain figures popular with collectors is trying to make a go of it under new owners, having been shut down from October 2008 to late February as a consequence of the economic downturn and the bankruptcy of its parent company.

Hummel is rehiring dozens of its artists and new management is cautiously upbeat, mindful of the troubles that put former owner Goebel Porcelain Factory in bankruptcy in 2006.

“We’ve had a good start,” said Dagmar Treuner, product manager for the newly created firm Manufaktur Roedental GmbH. “We’ve had to hire more workers to keep up with demand.”

Now, the plant has 111 staff. But the hundreds of layoffs are hard to forget when vacant, bright-green painting stations fill entire rooms at the plant in Roedental, a small town amid patches of forest and farm fields 120 miles (200 kilometers) east of Frankfurt.

As parent Goebel reorganized, it decided to shutter the Hummel factory and let go all 230 employees – so that it could focus on producing its glass and porcelain accessories.

Employees and collectors reacted to the news with disbelief, given that Goebel had been making the figurines since 1935.

“It was a difficult time for everyone,” said Troeger as he worked. “The emotion from collectors was unbelievable.”

“The decision was basically from one day to the next – everyone was completely caught off guard,” said William Nelson, an American who has spent more than 20 years managing the M.I. Hummel Club in Ebersdorf by Coburg. The fan club counts more than 13,000 members worldwide. “People were shocked, disappointed, disbelieving and many said the interest was too great for Hummel to cease forever.”

Joerg Koester, the director of Hoechst Porcelain near Frankfurt, stepped in, founding Manufaktur Roedental, which acquired Hummel’s copyrights and production facilities. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Goebel had tried to maximize revenue from M.I. Hummel by increasing production, manufacturing up to hundreds of thousands of figurines a year. It didn’t work.

“The old strategy was, in part: how many figurines do we have to produce to employ all these people?” Koester said.

The strategy backfired – figurines collected in warehouses and on retailers’ shelves faster than they were purchased, deflating prices as supply outstripped demand.

“Instead, you need to realize it’s a specialty market and limit production, growing slowly and carefully… We don’t want to reach those levels again,” Koester said. “We’ll be manufacturing a fifth of that.”

The recession has been hard on several other venerable hobby and collectible firms. Goeppingen, Germany-based model railroad specialist Maerklin Holding GmbH is operating under bankruptcy protection from creditors after it failed to secure new credit from banks. Ireland’s Waterford Wedgwood PLC, battered by the global economic slowdown, has filed for bankruptcy protection after failed attempts at a restructure or a sale.

At Hummel, Koester, is relying on longtime employees such as Troeger, 55, who has 40 years of experience molding, casting and assembling the delicate pieces that make up each figurine.

The appeal of the porcelain figurines – such as the best-selling “Merry Wanderer,” a walking boy carrying an umbrella and bag, or “Goose Girl,” a bonneted girl with a pair of pet geese – is a combination of childhood nostalgia and the urge to collect. After all, they don’t come cheap – prices begin at around $145 and can go up steeply from there.

“Forever Friends,” which features two sisters staring at a swan and her chicks, and made in 2006, went for $1,650 recently on eBay.

The figurines are inspired by drawings of children done by a Franciscan nun, Sister Maria Innocentia, born Berta Hummel, which were published as cards and in books and caught the eye of Franz Goebel in 1934. Goebel was granted rights to produce look-alike figurines, and after her death in 1946, her convent created an artistic board to supervise and advise the manufacturing process.

Everything is done by hand – from the various casting molds to the drawn-on faces – and one figurine takes anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks to produce.

The nun’s nephew, Alfred Hummel, who runs the Berta Hummel Museum in the small Bavarian village of Massing where she was born, remains an adviser.

“There’s a lot of heart and soul involved,” Hummel said. “It’s not like selling cars.”

Manufaktur Roedental is hoping this year’s additional significance – the 100th anniversary of Sister Maria Innocentia’s birth, marked by a multi-figure special edition piece depicting a parade of Bavarian children – will help to spark just that.
Employees, though, are as cautious with their hopes as they are with the delicate porcelain.

“It would be nice just to keep working,” Troeger said as he assembled a palm-sized ceramic wagon for the anniversary figurine. “And, at the moment, it looks as though we can continue.”
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Associated Press Writer Caroline Winter in Berlin contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
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AP-WS-09-07-09 0952EDT