From Jane Spillman, more on Max Erlacher
I didn’t think to share it, but my favorite story about Max is from many years
ago, when I first met Peter Rath who is a member of the Lobmeyr family. He
said that Max was hired there as a young engraver just out of training, but they
found that he was so fast and so good that they could never use him as an
“average”. That is, when they adopted a new design, they had it engraved and
they based the pricing on how long it took the engraver to accomplish it.
But Max was so fast that he threw their calculations off. Also, he liked to play
tennis. So the family let him play tennis part of the time in nice weather so he
wouldn’t upset the other engravers by his skill and speed. That’s a memory from
30 years ago, but I think I have it right!