The Rock County History Center has acquired a new 6-foot-tall nutcracker that mirrors an existing 6-footer that greets visitors at Luverne’s 5,000-piece collection.
The “King Red” German nutcracker, with an estimated value of nearly $6,000, was first given to the Alexandria Shrine Club to be used as a fundraiser for the Minneapolis Shriners Hospital for Children.
It was brought from East Germany in the 1980s before the fall of the iron curtain. After it was purchased, it took the owners three years to get it into West Germany and eventually to Minnesota.
Now it makes its home in Luverne, standing at attention in the doorway to the nutcracker collection and across from a white one that looks nearly identical, except for its color.
“They could be twins,” said Betty Mann, who started Luverne’s nutcracker collection in 2016 when she donated her personal nutcracker collection to draw more people to the museum.
Since then, the collection has grown from 2,800 to more than 5,000.
The white 6-footer arrived in Luverne with a donation of 130 German nutcrackers from a Northfield resident last year, and Mann said they may name that one also, since King Red has a name.
She said the museum recently received 22 additional German nutcrackers formerly owned by the late Rev. Alfred and Trudy Schmalz, who ministered at St. John Lutheran Church in Luverne from 1956 to 1981.
That brings the current number of nutcrackers in Luverne to exactly 5,435, the third-largest collection in the United States.
Seguin, Texas, has a collection of over 8,000, and the Nutcracker Museum in Leavenworth, Washington, has 9,100.
Those may be the largest collections in the United States, but Mann makes an important distinction about Luverne’s collection.
“I tell everybody that comes through here that all their items are made in Germany and the majority of their collection actually cracks nuts,” she said.
“Our collection has anything that reminds you of a nutcracker. I’m biased, but their collections have racks and racks of what look like tools. … They’re beautiful, but you know, they are different from ours. And people have told me you see a lot more color here.”
Regardless of who has the most nutcrackers, Mann said she’s enjoyed comparing nutcrackers to Luverne’s population.
“Our claim to fame at this point is that we now have more nutcrackers than people.”
Luverne’s nutcracker collection is housed in the Rock County History Center on East Main Street.
Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and closed on Sundays. Call 507-283-2122 or email rcmuseum@gmail.com.