Authenticating Your Walter Bosse Hedgehog Ashtrays: Types of Baby Hedgehogs

Walter Bosse vintage brass stacking hedgehog ashtray babies with black patina and polished gold highlights

Over my years of collecting, I have come across hundreds of Walter Bosse’s hedgehog ashtrays. Initially I mostly saw the two most common baby hedgehogs in the set: 1) the X leg baby and 2) the fully formed legs baby. But recently I’ve found  3 more rare variations: 1) the single bar leg baby, 2) […]

Walter Bosse Fakes – A History of the Greek Hedgehog Ashtrays

Made In Greece Fake Vintage Hedgehog Ashtray

After finding of one of these “Made in Greece” stamped hedgehog ashtrays with a photo of a box, I figured it was time to do an updated post. Let’s start with the basics. This hedgehog ashtray is made of a white metal, probably a zinc based metal alloy with an applied antiqued patina in a […]

Walter Bosse Fakes – A History of 1МПЗ Russian Hedgehog Ashtrays

Russian Hedgehog Ashtray Fakes

It has taken me almost 8 years of research until I finally made a break in this case 3 days ago. I have focused mainly on authenticating the Walter Bosse hedgehog ashtrays, but I thought I should turn my attention to researching the origins of this forgery. It all started with someone mentioned that they […]

Authenticating Your Walter Bosse Hedgehog Ashtrays: All the Fakes

Collage of 4 Hedgehog Ashtray Fakes

As the years go by I am astounded at the number of different fake sets I’ve been finding. The two main ones you will often find are of course the Greek and Russian sets but there are SO many others out there that I didn’t expect. Some of them seem pretty small batch or handmade, […]

Authenticating Your Walter Bosse Hedgehog Ashtrays: Curious Cases – Steel & Ferrous Metal

Walter Bosse Steel Hedgehogs

I recently came across a few strange metal hedgehog sets and was surprised to find that they were all highly magnetic! That is a trait shared only by ferrous metals, or metal with iron in them. So I figured I should put a post together and talk about all their curious traits and how I […]

Authenticating Your Walter Bosse Hedgehog Ashtrays: Part 3 – All the Hedgehogs!

Walter Bosse Hedgehog Ashtrays

Lately I’ve noticed some confusion when it comes to authenticating Walter Bosse hedgehog ashtrays. Whether you own a set already and want to check them or are looking to possibly buy a set of your own and want to make sure it’s real and not fake, I thought it would be good to clarify some […]

Authenticating Your Walter Bosse Hedgehog Ashtrays: Part 2 – Rare Models and Marks

Walter Bosse Rare Hedgehogs, Stickers and Markings

Hi everyone! First off, I want to thank everyone for taking the time to educate themselves on authentic Walter Bosse hedgehogs and fake ones. When I first started off doing this, the fake Russsian and Aeroflot hedgehog ashtrays were selling for more than Bosse’s originals because everyone was incorrectly attributing those logos to him. Since […]

They’re Back! Limited Edition Release of Walter Bosse’s Hedgehog Ashtrays

Walter Bosse Menagerie

THE SALE IS NOW UP ON FAB.COM! And now, proudly reintroducing Walter Bosse’s legendary nesting hedgehog ashtrays. Modern Vienna Bronze has released a limited edition of 20 sets of Walter Bosse’s iconic six nesting hedgehog ashtrays, with handmade wooden crates and letterpress-printed certificates of authenticity. These famous nesting creatures have not been available since the 1960s, and now […]

Limited Edition Custom Wooden Crates for Walter Bosse’s Hedgehogs

Walter Bosse wooden box for his hedgehog ashtrays, depicting custom stencil and pochoir brushes.

We aren’t able to share as much detail on the Fab sale so we thought we’d share some up close and personal photos of the boxes. A little bit about the process: Each box is a custom made sliding lid wine box made of solid pine. We fitted the lid with some extra support struts […]