The Gates of the Gutenberg Museum – initially a 12 part series attempting to unravel the mystery of the bronze gates of the Gutenberg Museum.
I’ve now updated the information and rolled it into one article here
I wanted to close the circle.
I wanted to find one of the original plates that Karl-Heinz Krause used to model his panels and then juxtapose it with the imprint.
We know that he returned them (if there was ever any doubt…) because the galleon under full sail that you’ll see on one of the gates turned up on a poster printed by the museum’s print shop.
But where are they?
I drifted into the Print Shop and told a lady there what I was doing and what I was looking for.
“You actually KNOW something about the gates? REALLY? I can’t BELIEVE it! People ask us ALL the time and we can’t tell them ANYTHING about them”
So I relate the story and she’s saying ” Oh, this is GREAT! We help people do rubbings of the plates and we even do impressions in clay with littlies for them to take home”
She didn’t have the plates but she knew who might be able to help me further.
The museum’s printer, Herr Hoffman.
No, HE didn’t have the plates, but there’s a cupboard he inherited from his predecessor and he’s not quite sure what’s in it.
Perhaps the plates.
Except that they’re doing some work in the basement and the cupboard would appear to be currently inaccessible, hemmed in by pallets of papaer.
He’s promised to get back to me sometime next month.
Let’s keep our collective fingers crossed…
Mainz Daily Photo 
>You are persistent that's good!
>You are now earning a reputation of researcher par excellence! Well-deserved I might add. Some people enjoy a challenge and you obviously are one of them!! Information is tops!
>I so like happy endings, can't wait for it (if it happens). And now the story is sure to be told all over Mainz.