The Museum’s collection of nineteenth-century European cast iron is one of the three largest and most comprehensive of its kind and is the only such collection known in the United States. Formed by Gustav Lamprecht during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the collection is unique in that it is one of the few that has remained intact over a period of more than one hundred years. It is also one of the few to include such a large number of objects from a wide variety of foundries, both public and private, both German and Austrian. Comprised of delicate objects, such as watch stands, paperweights, small sculpture, and jewelry, it is appropriate that the collection has made its home in Birmingham, as it is primarily the iron industry that is responsible for the city’s existence and growth.