Kafirahmdeckeli | Schaerer

Everything you always wanted to know about Switzerland's most unusual collecting passion!

Kafirahmdeckeli are really a very, very Swiss passion for collecting.

Every coffee comes with coffee cream. At least that's how it feels in Switzerland. And every coffee cream also comes with a coffee cream lid. These have a diameter of just under 4 centimetres and are 0.03 to 0.04 millimetres thick. They have a tab with which the lid can be removed and are printed with many different motifs. And yes, they are collected. Kafirahmdeckeli are very popular with an older clientele in Swiss collecting circles and swap meets. We would like to get to the bottom of this passion for collecting.

The origins

The passion for collecting Kafirahmdeckeli originated in the 1960s. The basis for this is the coffee cream portioned in small cups with welded lids made of aluminium or composite foil, which became popular in restaurants and private households during this period. The lids used to seal these cups provide an eye-catching and effective decorative and advertising surface. Portioned coffee cream is produced and consumed all over the world. And all over the world, the lids are decorated with motifs or with advertising images or brand imprints of the respective manufacturer. In Switzerland, however, hundreds of series and individual motifs are created every year, featuring flowers, animals, cars, landscapes, sights, aeroplanes, athletes, etc. And Switzerland is also the centre of coffee cream lid collecting ("Dechele").

Manufacturers realised early on that they could increase their sales with new motifs and editions, as Swiss coffee drinkers were prepared to buy far more coffee cream than necessary to own all the Deckeli in an edition. To avoid damaging the lids when removing them, the collectors developed their own techniques for removing the coffee cream, separating the lid from the plastic cup and preparing it for the collection. A report from the SRF Sonntagsmagazin of 1 December 1991 provides interesting insights into the passion for collecting.

Not without my coffee cream
Monika Oeggerli, trainer at the Coffee Competence Centre at Schaerer, is also very familiar with coffee cream: "Many of our customers use coffee cream during coffee tastings with our trained coffee specialists in sales and service. They say that this is the only way they can check and compare the quality of their coffee. They are probably used to it and we naturally cater to our customers' wishes - we love it your way! That's why we always have enough coffee cream with lots of different printed coffee cream lids in the house".

Curiosities

In the 1960s, there were initially a few collectors of the Deckeli. But as early as the 1970s, clubs and exchange platforms were set up. The first series with 30 motifs appeared in the late 1970s.

Some important dates and events in the history of the Kafirahmdeckeli:

in 1979, probably the most famous series appears: the Burra advertising series "Blick", which was withdrawn from circulation due to so-called "alien advertising", which was banned at the time. This issue reached five-figure sums among collectors.
in 1986, the Club Kaffee-Doppelcrème association was founded in Zurich.
in 1998, a counterfeiting ring was uncovered and in 2000, counterfeits once again appeared as "rare series".

Today, this passion for collecting is ridiculed and ridiculed. This is a judgement that everyone should make for themselves. We believe that whatever is fun and doesn't harm anyone should be allowed. We are also impressed by the attention to detail, discipline, patience and passion with which the collectors of Kafirahmdeckeli pursue their hobby.

Do you have a collection and don't know what to do with it?

The Club Kaffee-Doppelcrème provides some very helpful tips:

It's hard to sell kaffirahmdeckeli these days. But if you follow these tips, you have the opportunity to receive a few francs for a collection instead of having to pay disposal fees.

Do you still have treasures at home?
We are looking for covers and series that were rarely used, misprints, series that were only used regionally or variants that were only available for a short time. There are not many of these to be found. But in almost every collection you will find a very small part, a few Deckeli that are sought after. Let's call these few pieces "the treasures". It is precisely this part of a collection that is hard to find and therefore accounts for the value (price) of an entire collection.

What is the best way to sell?
The most successful way to sell your collection is to go to a swap meet with all the material and try to offer the collection to several interested parties. Ask for the organiser at the swap meet. He/she will help you to show the collection to interested collectors. Exchange meetings held on Saturdays or Sundays are usually attended by more collectors and the chances of success are correspondingly higher.

But there are still many Swiss collecting passions

In some respects, Switzerland can be considered the promised land of collectors. The Gesellschaft für schweizerische Kunstgeschichte is dedicating an issue of the magazine k+a Kunst + Architektur in der Schweiz to this phenomenon, because collecting as a bourgeois phenomenon can be traced in Switzerland like in hardly any other country in Europe. You can find this issue here.

Sharing and showing passion

Some passionate collectors have given rise to world-famous museums, of which the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen is probably the best-known example. Other, less well-known collectors are certainly worth mentioning: the collection of Peter & Elisabeth Bossard, which was on display at the Kunstzeughaus Zug a few years ago, or the collection of Le Corbusier (sea snails, ceramics from the balcony, flotsam and industrial glass), which can be seen at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich.

Collecting is fun

The variety of collectibles is huge: books, old cars, empty or unopened bottles, coins, stamps, beer mats, dolls and salt shakers are just a few examples among many. Bruno S. Frey mentions in his commentary published in the Commentary published in the NZZ, that collecting is an undeniable pleasure, increases the willingness to socialise more and subjectively increases life satisfaction. And let's be honest, all of us have collected something at some point, because collecting is based on a basic human instinct.