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Hammerschlagen
	Hammer driving nails into the wood stump
Other names	Nagelbalken, Stump, Nagelspiele
Players	2+
Setup time	Minimal
Playing time	10-20 minutes
Chance	Low

Hammerschlagen (also called Stump or Nagelbalken [German lit. 'nail beam']), is a game in which participants compete against each other to drive nails into a wooden beam.

Competitive nailing can be a solo game.^[1]^[2] However, the most common form is as a competition between several individuals, the winner of which gets a prize.^[3]

Origins

According to Florian Dering, a museologist at the Munich Stadtmuseum, the nail beam game as folk amusement has been around since the 1920s.^[4] This driving of nails into dimensional lumber has been used by showmen and charities to raise money, and also at weddings to have the newly married couple show their skills to the audience.

Dering reports a series of administrative regulations: the vertical cross-section of the plank should be at least 12 cm by 12 cm, and have no knots or protruding branches. Several hammers are used, each having a mass of at least 400 g and a handle length of at least 30 cm. The nails provided should have a round (but not smooth) head, and be at least two inches long. The nail bar is usually mounted at table height and secured to sawhorses by way of screw clamps.

WRB Inc. claims the owner of Gasthaus Bavarian Hunter in Saint Paul, Carl Schoene, invented the game. Schoene's father-in-law, Mike Wlaschin, claimed to come up with the Hammerschlagen name. In 1999, Wlaschin founded WRB which has a trademarked the name Hammer-Schlagen and the game design trade dress.^[5]^[6] While company acknowledges iterations of the nail-driving game existed prior to Schoene,^[5]^[7] they have used their trademark to take legal action on restaurants and bars and other businesses that fail to sign licensing agreements with the company.^[8]

Hammerschlagen today

United States

In the United States, the game is often played while consuming beer and is associated with tailgate parties, German cultural events and Oktoberfest celebrations, and beer festivals in the Upper Midwest.^[9]^[6] Commonly, a tree trunk is used in place of the wooden beam.^[10]

Germany

It can be found as a game of leisure at events and festivals, often for children and as a wedding custom.^{[citation needed]}

For Expo 2000, the Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin in Dortmund presented the Exhibition Of The Labor World to demonstrate different aspects of workplace security.^[11] A hammerschlagen area was provided to demonstrate a person's physical competence.^[12] Among many other things at the exhibition, the "Living And Working World" area in which the nail bar appeared dealt with the intellectual, psychological, physical, and social competence of people, which was implemented scenographically in four so-called "elementary spaces": four cubic, monomaterially formed spaces that were meant to arouse the senses by way of light, sounds, artistic ciphers, and smells.

References

^ Hansen Buildings Channel (5 March 2012). "2012 NFBA Nail Pounding Contest". youtube.com. YouTube. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Maze Nailes (12 March 2015). "2015 NFBA nail pounding competition". youtube.com. YouTube. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Lindsay, Britt (1 November 2000). "Dead Games". CityPages.com. CityPages. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Dering, Florian (1986). Volksbelustigungen: eine bildreiche Kulturgeschichte von den Fahr-, Belustigungs- und Geschicklichkeitsgeschäften der Schausteller vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (in German). F. Greno. ISBN 978-3-89190-005-5.
^ ^a ^b "Don't get hammered over Hammer-Schlagen". postbulletin.com. Post Bulletin. Archived from the original on 2019-08-01. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
^ ^a ^b Tribune, Kristen Leigh Painter Star. "A dispute over Hammer-Schlagen in Stillwater zeroes in on quirky game's origin". Star Tribune. Retrieved 2023-05-05.
^ Weniger, Deanna. "Judge: Hammer-Schlagen is enforceable trademark". SWNewsMedia.com. Retrieved 2023-05-05.
^ Tribune, Kristen Leigh Painter Star. "A dispute over Hammer-Schlagen in Stillwater zeroes in on quirky game's origin". Star Tribune. Retrieved 2023-05-05.
^ O’Brien, Rebecca Davis. "The Hardest Thing About Hammerschlagen Is Scoring a Tree Stump". WSJ. Retrieved 2023-05-05.
^ Ericson, Randy (2001-09-29). "Autumn sun taps Oktoberfest festivities". Lacrosse Tribune. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
^ Gerhard Kilger, "Das szenografische Konzept der DASA"^{[permanent dead link‍]}, in: DASA – Arbeitswelt Ausstellung, Kolloquium 2000: Szenografie in Ausstellungen und Museen (pdf) (in German)
^ .Kilger, Gerhard; Bieneck, Hans-Jürgen (2002). Neue Qualitèat der Arbeit: wie wir morgen arbeiten werden. Campus Verlag. p. 41. ISBN 978-3-593-37161-0.

External links

Helge Normann, "Das Geheimnis des Nagelbalkens", Wochenspiegel, 26 June 2010 (with video) (in German)
Postenzettel (scorecard) for a Nagelbalken contest (PDF) (in German)