Glocken- und Kunstgießerei Rincker
Bell foundry in Sinn, Hesse, run by the Rincker family since 1590 and still casting church bells in loam moulds by hand, a process that takes weeks per bell.
- Sector
- Consumer Brands
- Headquarters
- Sinn, Hesse
- Founded
- 1590
- Ownership
- Family-owned (Rincker family, 13th and 14th generations)
- Known for
- Church bells cast in loam moulds
- Website
- www.rincker.de
- Topics
- church bells foundry bronze craft family business Hesse
What they do
Rincker casts bronze church bells, restores and recasts historic bells, and produces art castings. The foundry in Sinn, a small municipality in the Lahn-Dill district of central Hesse, still uses the traditional loam-mould method instead of faster sand casting. Brothers Hanns Martin and Fritz Georg Rincker lead the business.
Why it matters
Rincker states that its family has run the foundry since 1590, which it says makes it the oldest of its kind in Europe, and Hesse's tourism board calls it Germany's oldest bell foundry. The know-how for constructing a bell's profile, the so-called rib that determines its tone, has passed within the family for at least 14 generations. That continuity is rare in any industry.
The process explains the slow pace. A 2024 report in the Deutsche Handwerks Zeitung describes how a mould is built over about eight weeks: a loam core, a false bell shaped with a wooden template, and an outer mantle. Wax decorations are melted out, the copper-tin bronze is poured into a mould buried in the casting pit, and the bell cools for at least two weeks before it is dug out. About 90 per cent of the casting material is recycled. As Hanns Martin Rincker told the Hesse tourism board, the family needs at least four weeks rather than one to make a bell.
Products to know
- Church bells and full peals: new bells and recasts of lost historic bells, including bells for Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.
- Bells for export: Rincker bells hang in South Korea, Hungary and Chile.
- Art castings: sculptures and plaques in bronze.
The German angle
The family moved its foundry to Sinn in 1817 because of the quality of the local clay, an essential raw material for loam moulds. A family firm that has outlived the Thirty Years' War, the German Empire and two republics is the purest example of what the Mittelstand means by thinking in generations.
Sources
Stories
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Last reviewed 4 November 2026. Main source: www.rincker.de. Something out of date? Suggest a correction.