Trivia For Beistle Decoration Collectors

The Beistle Company was founded by its namesake, Martin Luther Beistle and was known as "ML" to his family, friends, customers and employees. ML Beistle adapted an existing German manufacturing process of "honeycombing" paper. He utilized it to produce tissue holiday decorations. The company adopted a honey bee icon as symbolic of the industriousness of Beistle's workforce and as a reference to the individual paper "cells" that were formed during the tissue paper honeycombing process. Additionally, the company adopted a "BEE-LINE" trademark later on to further reinforce the association. By the late 30's both the bee symbol and BEE LINE trademark were appearing in the company's literature and products.

Unfortunately it forever after created confusion as to how the Beistle name was actually pronounced as nearly everyone assumed it as well as the honey bee reference were meant as phonetic aids for the Beistle name, which is often incorrectly pronounced "BEE Stuhl", where as the correct form is "BYE Stuhl".

The Beistle Company refers to its paper converting processes as "honeycombing" and the shape in cross section of the actual tissue paper cells, what the company refers to as "mesh", is the six sided shape found in natural honeycomb but only in the smaller tissue mesh sizes of the Beistle product. The "glue lines" used to hold the tissue layers together in smaller mesh are both the top and bottom of the cell. The tissue paper sides are slightly larger than the glue line width and make up the other four sides of the cell. When expanded the small mesh cells do have the appearance of natural honeycomb and hence the name. But in larger mesh sizes the glue line width is not significant compared to the sides of the tissue cell and when expanded the cell is not six sided but has a four sided lozenge or "diamond" shape in cross section instead.

Interestingly, adding to the confusion, the company has throughout its history used the lozenge shape of the larger tissue mesh instead of the honeycomb shape of the smaller mesh as the background for the display of the Beistle name. The same lozenge shape symbol is seen in the Beistle corporate logo, service pin, catalogs, fliers, and letterhead stationary to this day.

This is an original honeycomb tissue sample chart showing the colors of beater dyed tissue that the Beistle Company offered. The sample chart was affixed to the back of the 1938 catalog (as well as earlier ones) as a handy reference for customers. Not only does it show the "solid" colors that were offered but the color combinations that were available at the time by using different solid color tissue layers in the honeycombing process.

The samples also illustrate the smallest mesh size available, 1/4" as measured from edge to edge of the cell, that the company could produce. The glue line width for this mesh size as well as all of the larger mesh sizes (up to and over 2 ") was just over 1/8".

After the individual layers of tissue were honeycombed into what the company called a tissue "blanket" they were manually cut from the machine's forming drum and then hung up by workers using ladders in a "drying kiln" room to evaporate the water from the adhesive.

ML Beistle's son-in-law, Henry Ernst Luhrs joined the firm as a Sales Manager. Subsequently he became the company's General Manager, President and Chairman. Adding further confusion for today's vintage Beistle decoration collectors, during his tenure many of the Beistle Company's products were copyrighted and marked simply as "H.E. Luhrs" with no other reference to Beistle. Many collectors today incorrectly believe that products marked "H.E. Luhrs" were from a competing firm. They were in fact original Beistle products.



(all artwork images are copyrighted by The Beistle Co. and the Beistle logo and BEE LINE are its registered trademarks and reproduced with permission)