November 1, 1920 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



133 



decrease in business that was done during the fair. The failure 

 of the last fair in fact has its foundation in the occurrences of last 

 year's auiumn fair. The German manufacturers, including the 

 rubber manufacturers, went to this fair with very high hopes. 

 They had just passed over the most serious part of the after the 

 war period, the first year of peace, and were ready to do business 

 as before. The foreign buyers were most amenable and the Leip- 

 sig Fair was well visited by them. The sales were fairly large, 

 because of the cheap prices offered by the Germans and also owing 

 to the very favorable exchange to the foreign buyer. But the 

 German manufacturers apparently spoiled the success of this first 

 beginning of international trading by not coming up to their 

 promises. 



First, the Germans did not keep tlieir promises as to date of 

 delivery. This might have been e.xcused on account of minor 

 revolutions and labor difficulties. Neither England nor France 

 has been able to hold her delivery dates. But the Germans, 

 seeing the market going against them also, failed to keep their 

 promises as to prices. When the exchange value of the mark 

 went down the German manufacturers tried to evade their con- 

 tracts. In some cases where marks had been quoted and the order 

 accepted, they attempted to substitute dollar or another quotation 

 for marks, and declined to ship unless the buyer agreed to what 

 amounted practically to a hold up. The buyers in consequence 

 suffered great losses and the Germans sacrificed many customers 

 that had remained loyal to them even during the war. 



When this year's autumn fair arrived the foreign buyers posi- 

 tively stated that they would not place any orders unless the Ger- 

 mans would undertake to fill them and stick to their promises. 

 Whether this discouraged exhibitors or whether the foreign buyers 

 did not care to place orders under any conditions, it is sufficient 

 to say that the expected business was not realized. 



Passing over the business aspects of' the last fair, there was a 

 good deal of interest connected with it from the economic point 

 of view. To deal first with the technical fair, the most surprising 

 fact confronting the foreign visitor was the great number bf 

 exhibitors and incidentally the nervous temper displayed by the 

 exhibitors. Germany has gone through a technical boom, if a 

 boom be the formation of many firms manufacturing technical 

 articles, including such made from rubber. The impression seems 

 to have gone round in Germany that the country is in urgent want 

 of technical equipment and a great many enterprises have, there- 

 fore, centered their activities upon manufacturing such equipment 

 of various sorts. With the comparatively small quantities of raw 

 materials on hand the new firms are finding life very difficult and, 

 having no foreign markets to speak of at the present time, they 

 all have tried to sell to the German consumer, who naturally was 

 soon fed up with this oversupply. The German industry after 

 having once started its machinery and paid heavily during that 

 period for industrial equipment has now become a very careful 

 purchaser. 



Nearly all manufacturers of mechanical rubber goods have been 

 compelled to reduce prices. These prices are still far above the 

 1914 levels but the tendency to lower them is very pronounced 

 and it is time that the competitors of Germany in this field should 

 wake up to the fact that consistent attempts are being made to 

 bring down prices at any cost. Rubber hose, hard rubber goods 

 and many other rubber goods have been marked down, and the 

 promise is made that prices will decline still further if German 

 foreign exchange is again normalized. The German rubber in- 

 dustry has been especially adept in changing from unprofitable 

 products to those for which there is a large demand. Hence one 

 finds hard rubber factories suddenly turning to jar rings. Insu- 

 lation materials arc still in good demand and there is a large 

 business done in rubber gloves. The German mechanical rubber 

 goods nidustry seems to have realized that during the next few 

 years rubber will be used for many articles for which there was 



comparatively little demand in the past. Brake linings for horse 

 drawn cars, for instance, have been borrowed from the auto- 

 mobile designers. The brewing industry, which has been kepi 

 in verj' strict limits during the war, is now recovering again 

 and with it comes a very heavy demand for bottle rings, spiral 

 hose condensor rings and a great many other rubber articles. 

 Also the belting industry is busy bringing out many novelties. 



The technical fair gave opportunity for showing goods used in 

 other industries. For instance, wringing machine rollers, hard 

 rubber tubes for fountain pens and similar articles. The rubber 

 manufacturers are of opinion that they will have to show these 

 articles to remind the buyers of their existence even if the demand 

 should still be very small. There has been a good demand for 

 rubber made parts from foreign sources, which shows that foreign 

 manufacturers are inclined to make use of German parts even if 

 they should prefer to do the work of assembling in their own 

 factories outside of Germany. 



The conditions during the sample fair were very similar to those 

 during the technical fair. The foreign demand was comparatively 

 small and the business suffered from the fact that the German 

 makers being apprehensive about delivery were inclined to err on 

 the other side by asking long delivery periods. As the result a 

 large percentage of all business was done for next year's delivery. 

 Sport articles, of course, are always sold during the autumn fair 

 for delivery at the beginning of the following summer. But it 

 seems that even rubber shoes were ordered for delivery only dur- 

 ing the winter of 1921, which seems an unusually long term. The 

 demand for rubber soles and heels is now increasing again after 

 having declined severely during the summer. The growth in the 

 German automobile business was reflected by larger orders for 

 rubber matting, rubber sponges, auto horn bulbs and similar arti- 

 cles. There is of course always a certain demand for house and 

 kitchen articles and the sale of druggist's sundries has remained 

 good ever since the ending of the war. Novelties in orthopedic 

 articles are selling well at the present time in Germany and a 

 careful reader of the German patent reports can notice that the 

 wave of surgical inventions has not come to an end with the war. 

 Artificial limbs are still much in demand and improvements are 

 made practically every day. Germany has developed in recent 

 years a special industry for the supply of ofiice articles. These, 

 including erasers, fountain pens, rulers, etc., were all offered 

 during the fair and sold in normal quantities. The demand for 

 ruljbcr combs and other similar articles of hard rubber still seems 

 to be below normal. 



NEW RUBBER FIRMS 



Thieme & Co. G.m.b.H,, Dresden. Manufacture and sale of 

 rubber goods. 



Haka Pannenlose Gummibereifung G.m.b.H., Chemnitz. Manu- 

 facture and sale of tire covers for automobiles, motorcycles and 

 bicycles. 



Excella Filler Pen Co. G.m.b.H., Neukoelln. Manufacture of 

 fountain pens, penholders, pencil holders and other hard rubber 

 goods. 



Frankfurter Gummihandelsgesellschaft m.b.H., Schaalmann & 

 Co., Frankfurt a.M. Sale of rubber goods. 



Dresdo Gummiwaren G.m.b H., Dresden. Manufacture of rub- 

 ber goods. 



Gummiworkc Genthin G.m.b.H., Genthin. Manufacture of rub- 

 ber goods and rubber substitutes. 



M. and W. Polack, Merseburg. Manufacture of Polack solid 

 tires. Owners, Max Polack and Werner Polack. Max Polack is 

 known as the founder of the well known B. Polack Gummiwaren- 

 fabrik and the B. Polack Aktiengesellschaft at Waltershausen in 

 Germany. Werner Polack is the son of the above. He is known 

 also in the United .States, where he was formerly engaged in 

 the tire branch of the rubber industry. 



