June 26, 2014 – It’s Schuler’s birthday: the internationally successful press manufacturer is celebrating its 175th year in business in 2014. Louis Schuler founded the company in 1839 as a metalworking shop in Göppingen’s Sauerbrunnengasse. Nobody at the time would have thought that the little workshop would one day become a global corporation with sales of almost € 1.2 billion.
The official anniversary logo. Source: Schuler.
‘There have been many milestones in Schuler’s success over the past 175 years,’ says CEO Stefan Klebert, ‘and very few companies in Germany can look back on such a long and successful history.’ A 175th company anniversary is rare: not even half of all German companies reach their 10th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Schuler’s celebrations will therefore include a central event for employees at its base in Göppingen, Germany, to be held in July. In addition, a special website presents 175 minor and major moments which have shaped Schuler over the years.
Louis Schuler opened a metalworking shop in 1839. Source: Schuler.
These include, for example, the moment in 1852 when founder Louis Schuler – inspired by the Great Exhibition in London one year previously – decided to dedicate his future to the construction of machines for sheet metal processing. The Industrial Age for minting technology began only about 1870. Motor-driven knuckle-joint presses replaced the strenuous manual labor of the previous age.
Letter from the Royal Württemberg Mint, 1874. Source: Schuler.
Schuler was already delivering presses to mints in these early days. This is evidenced by several historical documents, including a letter from the Royal Württemberg Mint dated 1874.
Sample coin for China National Mint, 1895. Source: Schuler.
However, Louis Schuler himself could no longer witness his company’s delivery of the first minting press to China in 1895 …
Schuler had its own exhibit at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900: the world’s first transfer press. Source: Schuler.
… and its own exhibit at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900: the world’s first transfer press. Also at the turn of the century, Schuler knuckle-joint presses were producing coins at rates up to 60 per minute – a remarkable achievement then. A 1905 report by the Mint and Foundry Masters of Saxony, Buschick and Choulant, mentions a visit to Schuler and 30 presses destined for China. Over the following years, the company’s headcount grew to 1,000.
A car body press for Opel in 1924 was Schuler’s first contact with the auto industry. Source: Schuler.
With a car body press for Opel in 1924, Schuler began supplying the fledgling auto industry.
Economic and technological milestones
After the Second World War, Schuler was the first company in the American sector to receive an export license. The painstaking reconstruction work was rewarded: in 1961, sales reached 100 million deutschmarks, in 1970 they exceeded 200 million. At the same time, the company drove its internationalization with the foundation of subsidiaries in Brazil and North America, for example, followed by China and India in the 90s.
National Mint San Luis Potosi (Mexico) 1983. Source: Schuler.
Until the early 1980s, the company delivered more than 1,000 minting presses with various improvements and new features to about 50 countries. A number of presses from this era are still in use today. With the development of the MRH / MRV series of minting presses, a new epoch of minting technology dawned in the 1980s.
MRH horizontal minting press in Canada with cycle rates of up to 850 strokes per minute. Source: Schuler.
Gradually, the performance of these Schuler machines was expanded and increased – to as much as 850 coins per minute. In parallel to this, and using the same concept with almost the same power, a series of machines was created in a vertical design for manufacturing round and multi-sided coins, as well as bi-metal and tri-metal coins.
Schuler’s leading position in the field of metalforming is also reflected by its business success: in 2012, the Schuler Group posted sales of more than one billion euros. ‘Minting solutions are inextricably linked with Schuler and have always contributed the company’s success’, concludes Dieter Merkle, Head of Minting at Schuler: ‘We will continue to be innovative leaders in the future, not only in the field of minting.’
Timeline
1839 Company founded as a metalworking shop by Louis Schuler
1852 First metalworking machines produced
1863 Founding of Fritz Müller Construction and Decorative Metalworking in Esslingen
1866 Founding of machine tool factory Weingarten
1895 Schuler delivers the first minting press to China
1897 Founding of Erfurt Forming Technology GmbH
1900 Schuler presents the world’s first transfer press
Schuler knuckle-joint presses produce up to 60 coins per minute
1924 Development of car body presses for mass manufacturing
1945 First Export License in the American sector
1946 Founding of Süddeutsche Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft in Waghäusel
1961 Sales exceed 100 million deutschmarks
1963 Founding of Machine Tool Plant Hermann Schleicher in Heßdorf
1965 Founding of Prensas Schuler S.A. in São Paulo (Brazil)
1967 Louis Schuler Fund (LSF) for Education and Science established
1973 Foundation of Gemminger Machine Tool Builders GmbH
1980s Development of the MRH / MRV series of minting presses
1987 Delivery of first minting press for manufacturing of bi-metal coins to Italy
1992 Foundation of Tianjin facility in China as joint venture
2007 Acquisition of Müller Weingarten AG,
Launch of ServoDirect Technology (SDT)
2011 Delivery of first minting press for manufacturing of tri-metal coins to Mexico
For more information go to the Schuler website …
… or visit the Schuler jubilee website.
And of course CoinsWeekly has reported about Schuler.