Definitely a question I never expected to hear!
I was in a new Facebook conversation with Annette, who had made contact to congratulate me on the world record and kindly offer to help with finding items I may be missing.
After asking after my wish list she casually asked "Have you ever heard about Catan soap?"
Of course my answer was "No?"
I then received an image (as shown). While unsure of the exact date, but at least 15 years ago, Klaus Teuber wanted to give a small gift to the moderators of the Catan Online World*.
Annette received an order for over 50 bars of strawberry smelling soap.
Klaus had the soap in his office for a few weeks before sending them out and later told Annette that his office had never smelled so good before.
Sadly none of the soap have survived.
I have to say I just love hearing stories like this. The stories are the folklore of Catan that will be lost if they are not shared and recorded.
* Catan Online World (also known as PlayCatan) was launched on 16 December 2002. Around 2017 the PlayCatan.com domain was redirected to point to its replacement CatanUniverse.com
Click the image to see a larger version
Annette made my day by sharing this story, but she made my month by offering to send me a rare piece of Catan memorabilia that she has had for many years. It is one of the rare 300 hand-painted pewter "Teuber Robbers" from 2006.
While I have standard examples of the painted and unpainted versions of the pewter robbers, I had only ever heard about the limited edition release. In fact I had never even seen a photo of the limited edition before this photo here.
While the pewter robber was available for a time in the German Catan shop, just 300 copies were specially packaged and given away by Klaus Teuber. Even better this copy is signed by Klaus Teuber himself!
I simply cannot thank Annette enough for donating this rare item to my collection!
