Souvenir by a miner from the Saarland
The Saar coal basin is part of the Sarre-Lorraine deposit which reaches up to Neunkirchen and in the southwest to Lorraine. The coal was extracted at the beginning from hillsides and later on in vertical shafts; production accelerated in the second half of the 19th century, generating a regrouping until the final closure of the Bergwerk Saar on June 30, 1912. This block of diamond-shaped anthracite contains 93 to 97% carbon and, besides its use as fuel it served as an electrode for electric motors. The engraving indicates the retirement of a miner (the crossed peaks) on September 26, 1951. This object is a rare testimony to terrible working conditions of a miner of that time.