Old-timey German nose-error-correcting contraption

This delightful vintage German contraption will cure your nose erros (Potato Nose, Saddle Nose, Duckbill Nose, Wide Nose, Pointy Nose, Long Nose, Hook Nose and Slant Nose) and give you a "Greco-Roman Normal Form" in short order. All for 7-10 marks!

Text: SUCH NOSE ERRORS and similar will be quite significantly improved with the orthopedic nose former "Zello". The new and improved Model 20 exceeds all others. Double-layered padding clings exactly to the anatomical structure of the nose so that the affected nasal cartilage is normal-shaped in a short time. (Bone deformities are not.) Most warmly recommended by Royal Court Advisor Dr. G. von Eck, M.D. and other medical authorities. 100,000 "Zello" in use. Price 5 Marks, 7 Marks, and 10 Marks and a 10% surcharge for a doctor's visit. (A model or impression is desired.) Specialist L. M. Baginski, Berlin W. 126, WInterfeldstr.

Ouch! Nasenformer "Zello" (Zello Noseformer!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: ad • Gadgets • germany • Old school • Weird

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ssll

Nowadays we just take care this sort of thing in 30 seconds.
amanicdroid

PFT I’ll go for the sattle nase any time over that boring griechisch-romisch.
Gulliver

Nose, the most overlooked part of the face.

I always thought it would be fun to have a prehensile nose.
- Just_Ok
  
  snot just for grabbing things
http://www.facebook.com/graham.g.martin Graham Martin

Delightful? They list one of the “errors” as “hook nose” and the goal is to give you a “Greco-Roman NORMAL form.” I am not Jewish, but I assume everyone is familiar that “hook nose” is a derogatory slang for Jewish people. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%22hook+nose%22) Of course this appears to predate WWII by a great bit, and I am viewing this in my own culteral context instead of the 1800′s where the art indicates this was created, but the concept of a German add that will help you change your “hook nose” to a “Greco-Roman normal form” is just not “delightful” to me. It just reeks of the long standing anti-Semitism in Europe. Even if not directly purposed for such concepts, I can’t help but imagine the tens of thousands of desperate Jews (and even non-Jews with certain physical appearances) who would have desperately tried such things to alter their appearance in a frantic attempt not to be murdered.

As I said, I am viewing this in my own cultural context, but even without the anti-Semitic sensitivity, this is an antiquated example of the glorification of the “Greco-Roman” (read “white and non-”Gypsie”) genetic traits.

And finally, even without the glorification of the “Greco-Roman” form, it is a reminder that people have always tried to convince others that there is something wrong with the way they were born and then invent a “solution” to that problem to sell to them.

Delightful? No. Awful.
- Gulliver
  
  And finally, even without the glorification of the “Greco-Roman” form, it is a reminder that people have always tried to convince others that there is something wrong with the way they were born and then invent a “solution” to that problem to sell to them.
  
  Are you kidding? If there was some way for me to start redesigning my own body-plan and features to fit my specifications and aesthetic tastes I’d be all over it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to have a hale mortal coil to begin with; but in no way, shape or form do I consider my body some immutable sacrosanct work of perfection. You betta believe I’d make improvements!
  - http://www.facebook.com/graham.g.martin Graham Martin
    
    I would make improvements, too. Just not towards some imagined perfection of “beauty.” I would trun off the aging and cancer mechanisms and the like.
    - Gulliver
      
      Ah, I see. Well, the way I see it, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Conforming to some idealized group-think aesthetic is not to my tastes. But at the same time, if that’s what others aspire toward, who am I to berate them for it?
      
      http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/IDIC
  - Volker
    
    > If there was some way for me to start redesigning my own body-plan and features to fit my specifications and aesthetic tastes I’d be all over it.
    
    Well to a large extend you can. Your body changes in reaction to what you eat and how you exercise. You can’t change minor details like nose shape without surgery, but really if your nose bothers you then its time to see a shrink…
    - Gulliver
      
      Well to a large extend you can. Your body changes in reaction to what you eat and how you exercise.
      
      I think of those more as settings than design features/bugs.
      
      You can’t change minor details like nose shape without surgery, but really if your nose bothers you then its time to see a shrink…
      
      It doesn’t bother me. Nothing about my body particularly bothers me. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t change it if I could. I wouldn’t resort to surgery for purely aesthetic improvements, though. I’ll wait patiently for a more elegant solution.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        …if your nose bothers you then its time to see a shrink…
        
        Who will almost certainly agree with you that your status in life is primarily dependent on whether or not you’re considered physically attractive.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1019365643 John J. Ronald
  
  Antisemitism was already a potent political force in Austria in the 1890s, and no doubt in Germany as well.
  
  People still believed in crap like Phrenology when ads like this were in vogue.
  - Just_Ok
    
    Vogue was first published in 1892, so I suppose it might be possible.
- MFK
  
  I agree that this type of wacky old-timey snake-oily ad is generally hilarious, and that this particular ad on the surfance falls into that wacky/delightful category. However there is no escaping the actual fact of long-standing anti-Semitism in Europe, German or otherwise, not to mention pesecution of all kinds of non-Jewish “Others.” (aside: I use “Other” here in the way identity politics generally uses the term, to signify those deviate, actually or in perception, from an artifically designated “norm” created by the ruling class.) There are tons of codes in this ad that flag anti-Semitism, and that woudl be true of the words and illustrations no matter what language it was written in or country of origin.
  
  Cory’s use of the term “delightful” is unfortunate…”Delightful” may have been intended as innocent or sarcastic here, and I certainly extend all assumption of poisitive intent. The lens of history (and stereotypes that persist into the present day) color and clarifiy how we must read the subtexts of the ad though.
  
  A qualifier like “Delightful yet unfortunate” or “Delightful but distrubing”–or whathaveyou–might have helped.
  - elNico
    
    “tons of codes in this ad that flag anti-Semitism”….care to elaborate?
    
    Or is asking already being anti-Semitic?
BarBarSeven

@Graham Martin
Lighten up Francis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrllCZw8jiM
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GVKHNINUD55NXFN4TRNHMBRDB4 Alexandros

@ Graham Martin
Now wait a minute. Just because its an about hundred year old GERMAN ad you allready smell (no pun intendet) antisemitism? There is no word anbout jews here, yet as it is german you assume it. I AM German and I feel offended by you!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IH3CQ7VQW6OVWD2OW367WYETXU William

Jews are remembered. No one remembers the Potato Nose people at all.
- jtegnell
  
  > Jews are remembered. No one remembers the Potato Nose people at all.
  
  Ralf Koenig certainly does.
Scixual

Of course it’s awful. That’s what makes it delightful. Not because of any imagined anti-semitism but because we’re talking about A DEVICE TO CHANGE THE SHAPE OF YOUR NOSE. That’s terrible. The ad, and the amount of time that has passed making it archaic and kinda comical: that’s the delightful part.
http://twitter.com/perspectivelute Dan O’Huiginn

I kind of agree with Graham about the unpleasant undertones here. There’s a reason why nose surgery was pioneered by German Jews.

That doesn’t stop the contraption being ridiculous and hilarious.
- http://www.facebook.com/larratt Shannon Larratt
  
  Nose surgery was developed and pioneered in India, not Germany.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoplasty
dross1260

What aesthetics does it bring to the philtrum?
awjt

Fie on Hitler Nose! This is the same thing as Hair Straightening and East Asian Blepharoplasty.
adamnvillani

Yeah, 100-years-ago German devices for “correcting” your nose into a “normal Greco-Roman form” are nothing but a bucket of delights. No sinister undertones there at all, no-sir-ree. Can’t think of *any* reason somebody in Berlin would want to cure a “hook-nose,” nope.
swell

Yeah, this ad is innocuous and ridiculous, and similar ones probably appeared in many countries and eras. But, the racial overtones (Greco-Roman nose) make it just a little too uncomfortably close to diagrams (and govt. funded cranial measuring programs) very VERY similar to this which were produced by Nazis less than a century after in the very same country, for example:

http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/query/85?uf=uia_WfscOl
Wolfram460

You know, I’d really prefer using photoshop to actually hacking my own face…
adamnvillani

This ad is goofy and ridiculous, but it might be nice to see some sort of evidence that the poster is aware of the context.
nehoccramcire

I’m Jew-ish, and found this item really interesting. What it reveals to me is how narrow the conception of German nose beauty was at the time. I mean, putting aside the racism that we can clearly postulate given the advantage of lived history, imagine how many pure-bred Germans at the time had a bad case of Spitz-Nase, or Sattel-Nase, and felt inferior to the ideal nose shape: Griechisch-Romisch. How arbitrary!

Full disclosure: my nose is pretty damn Haken. And I wish I had Mr. Haken Nase’s awesome Schnurrbart.
Zackary Sholem Berger

Dollars for doughnuts (or kroners for kugel) that the good Spezialist Baginski was Jewish himself. Sander Gilman (http://www.amazon.com/Jews-Body-Sander-Gilman/dp/0415904595) probably has something to say about this.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=600929025 Rick Hayes

#8 Scheise Nase? WUT?
- Little John
  
  #8 Scheise Nase? WUT?
  
  That’s not an “s”, it’s an “f”. Also, you’ve swapped the vowels, so I guess you’re intentionally aiming for a Scheiße (Scheisse) pun.
  
  “Schief” just means crooked.
alphagirl

I’d just like to note that I consistently find men with large noses attractive, especially those like #s 5 & 6.
- nehoccramcire
  
  hooray!
jungarrayi

I just have to put in this from my father’s anecdotes I wrote a few years ago when he was still alive….

APRIL’07- There never was much love lost between dad and his older sister (his younger sister Marga, born years later, he liked even less). Femmie had one of those ‘potato’ noses that you see in medieval Flemish paintings; she’d inherited it from her mother. When she became a teenager she was very self conscious of her ‘ugliness’ and her brother wasn’t at all helpful in this regard; dad still says Femmie was ugly (and stupid). I’ve seen photographs of my aunt Femmie and disagree.
An advertisement appeared in a magazine:
Gefällt ihre Nase nicht?
Dann können Sie den Nasenformer gebrauchen
Schicken Sie uns Mk.14,95…

Not satisfied with your nose?
Then you could make use of the ‘Nose-former’.
Send us 14.95 Mark…
APRIL’07- A felt lined leather case arrived. Inside were instructions, a few tubes of cream and an instrument made of copper, with various strategically placed screws to adjust the shape of the nose. The instructions proclaimed not to expect instant results and that the process would have to be repeated and would take time.
Before going to bed, Femmie would generously apply the thick white cream to her nose. She would then put on the device and tighten the various screws, in particular the ones on her flaring nostrils. She looked ridiculous. In the morning she would take off the Nasenformer, her nose now being pale and thinly ‘pinched’. Gradually her nose would ‘bloom’ into its normal shape and end up bright red and larger than before. She got no encouragement or support from her brother, only laughter and derision. Femmie wasn’t put off; she persisted with the Nasenformer, night after night, for a long time (to no avail).
To this day, dad can put on a hilarious performance of ‘Femmie and the Nasenformer’ which has us in stitches. If the internet had existed then, I’m sure the Nasenformer would have been right there with the Viagra pills and penis enlargers.
- kb1
  
  I wonder if the rig looked anything like this one: http://blackandwtf.tumblr.com/post/1462939733/date-unknown-beauty-device-to-shape-the-nose
  - jungarrayi
    
    Don’t know. From my dad’s description it doesn’t. I got the impression the Nasenformer was a deluxe model! Unfortunately dad died four years ago and he took the mental image with him.
Antinous / Moderator

Not one person has mentioned Amy March?
- awjt
  
  Nobody’s read Little Women. Not even me and I’ve read everything else.