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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Walter Del Pellegrino, post: 375795, member: 90&quot;]“Handarbeit” is German for “Made By Hand”.</p><p>The terms Made by Hand, Hand-Made, Hand-Painted, etc, are terms that emerged after the end of World War II (1945) and found mostly on European pieces intended for export to the U.S.</p><p>The term was meant to accentuate individual artistry and craftsmanship and inferred that they had a quality, and therefore a value, that mass produced items lacked. It was an advertising gimmick.</p><p>Prior to World War II almost all ceramics and other items were made by hand in places like Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, Greece and so on and there was no need to bring attention to that fact. These items were handcrafted or hand decorated by necessity. Modern machinery requires electricity and electricity was widely unavailable in these countries except for the major metropolitan cities and when it was available it was unreliable and often sporatic. Thus European goods were often more reliant on craftsman rather than technicians after the War.&nbsp;&nbsp; More importantly, machinery cost lots of money and labor was far cheaper. So someone hit upon the idea that telling the consumer that their teacup was made by hand somehow made it more valuable or of a better quality than a machine made teacup.&nbsp;&nbsp; By the 1960’s Europe had been largely rebuilt and technology restored, so the term slowly disappeared.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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