The bearded man walking in is a prime example of his clientele. Gerhard Miksch, clean-shaven, 62 years old and someone you don’t have to worry about getting up the step ladder to the top screw box unscathed, looks down into the shop. His employee starts the sales pitch. Because one of the many things that have changed here is the duration of the consultation. You can also learn a lot from this special shop, which is a contact point for craftsmen of all kinds, which has more than 6000 mainly screws and other mooring parts in stock in the endless expanse of the storage room, from this shop and the stories of its owner, how the changed the city and the now gentrified district.
The bearded man puts a metal case on the counter. People used to know what they needed for what, and how they would approach their repair or crafting needs. Today, customers’ expertise often ends with the item they need. The eyelet belongs to a bike wheel bearing but it doesn’t fit properly and is “US size” according to the customer. Andreas, the employee, pulls out his caliper. “We almost always need it,” says Miksch. Because it is like this: he has professional customers online who order thousands of screws. Back when he started, they sometimes delivered two full truckloads. Offline, i.e. in the shop at Ickstattstraße 12, that’s where the laypeople come. So not only, of course, but more and more.
Why? “For one thing, there are no longer any DIY stores in the city, apart from the V-Markt on Balanstraße.” And even Kustermann has severely restricted his screw and dowel repertoire, customers tell him. “But at the same time you can’t get any craftsmen anymore, so people go back to making things themselves.” Sometimes making it yourself isn’t that easy.
Nuts for all screws, also available individually.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
It’s not about a flying yeast that might not create a proper sourdough for the next hipster bread. It’s about a shelf or a cupboard, a motor or a wheel that needs the right screw and treatment so that it doesn’t fall down or fall apart. And then you just stand by Miksch and get advice. Very popular are Ikea blueprints, which are then spread out on the counter and where the man with the expertise is supposed to say which screws and dowels are needed. Of course it doesn’t work that way.
“People are often just not prepared.” This applies even more to men than to women. “They usually know more, have already measured their dimensions and weight, and are often well prepared.” The Glockenbach men, on the other hand, would probably proceed according to the motto: I can, and he’ll know at the screw shop. He knows that too, but that just takes time. In the meantime, it’s been a few minutes with the bicycle eyelet, the calliper showed a diameter of ten millimeters and the employee prescribed washers to solve the problem. “Perfect, great!” Says the customer and pays exactly 97 cents.
“The shop is now more of a hobby,” says Miksch.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
“Of course, the shop is now almost more of a hobby,” says Miksch. 90 percent of sales come from online trading. Miksch shows it briefly in his office on the computer, Radio 2Day is grooving in the background, as befits a craftsman’s facility, and the trained radio and television technician races across the screen with the mouse. A lot has changed since the namesake, Wilhelmine Mutter, opened the shop at Sendlinger Tor in 1950. And the walls downtown haven’t exactly gotten any sturdier. “The material, that’s the next thing,” says Miksch.
Anyone who comes to the screw advice well prepared knows whether the wall to be worked on is concrete (“You can’t get in there, but once you’re in there, everything holds”), plasterboard (“there’s not much holding there “) or the notorious Isarkies, which was popular in the area (“either nothing works because you hit a stone or you have a huge hole and crumbs”). Miksch now lends out a professional hammer drill so that amateurs in the area can defeat the Isar pebbles. Of course he would never say it like that, the man is a walking encyclopedia of etiquette and screws. If you look at the range of goods on offer, you can certainly draw conclusions about the skills of the inner-city dwellers.
The filler tubes alone fill an entire wall. Any wall disaster can be elegantly hidden under spatula and paint. Of course, that would never happen to Miksch, he practically built his house in Perlach completely himself and that’s how he got a taste for it. If he then has advised again for ten minutes and a customer takes a screw to the test, then he doesn’t ask for the 26 cent list price, but at least 50 cents. “But on the other hand, it’s just great fun to make people happy.”
Large selection – some customers would be stuck without advice.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
And they are. They come to Miksch with a problem that students sometimes find almost impossible to solve and leave with a solution and even instructions. Knigge-Miksch never flinched, not even when a man walked in with his thumb and forefinger spread out. “He said: I measured the length of the required screw at home and didn’t move my fingers anymore!”
And now they are also asking about electronics. “The Conrad has closed, so the demand is increasing,” says Miksch. But he cannot increase his offer at will. He has basic sets for the tool box, of course the more recent bit boxes. “Actually, the offer hasn’t changed that much compared to before.” But then the high-performance LED light seems a bit out of place. “We used to have flashlights that were great,” says Miksch. And the LED lamp is also due to modern times: it lights up for a day and has a USB port so that it can be used as a power bar. So for all Munich residents who want to escape from their screwed-up apartment, who in case of doubt have also subscribed to a vanlife magazine, of course they need such a light. Miksch doesn’t, he’ll surely recognize each of his 17,000 items even in the dark.