Why Are They Called Coasters?

A friend wrote me a question: Do you know why coasters are called coasters (the mats that you put glasses on, not the smaller ships that hug the coastline)?

My favorite beer-advertisement coaster.

I found the history of the word "coaster" from Etymology Online:

coaster (n.)

1570s, "one who sails along coasts," especially one who trades from port to port in the same country, agent noun from coast (v.) in its sense "to go around the sides or border" of something. Applied to vessels for such sailing from 1680s.

The meaning "tabletop drink mat" to protect a wooden table surface from condensation, etc., was in use by 1913, extended from bottle-coaster "low, round tray used for a decanter" (1874); it was formerly on wheels and so called probably because it "coasted" around the perimeter of the table to each guest in turn after dinner.

A 19th-century bottle coaster. (source)

 

Once I started reading about coasters, I couldn't stop. Most of the information I found is about cardboard advertising coasters given out in bars and restaurants and the hobby of collecting them. In addition to these promotional coasters, I've seen many souvenir coasters of all sorts in tourist shops throughout the world. Further, traditional artistic or fashionable table settings have included designer coasters made of silver, wood, stone, or glass, including coasters for glasses and for wine bottles. Most people now have coasters of one type or another in their homes, to protect the furniture when they serve drinks.

Mid-Century Modern Dansk Coasters designed by Jens Quistgaard (1960s)

The History of Coasters 

Caution: this timeline is a very weird collection of obscure facts, mainly about advertisements. Most of the information below is from "Who Invented Drink Coasters?" by Alyssa Mertes.

1880s: A German printer named Friederich Horn made the first cardboard beermats with advertising printed on them. Bar keepers loved them because they protected the tables and they were free -- paid for by the advertisers.

1892: In Dresden, wood pulp version called bierdeckels were patented by Robert Sputh. Cork beermats also became popular. Soon alehouses, pubs, and restaurants all had beermats.

1903: The Katz Group (which was originally founded as a sawmill in 1757) entered the beermat business. Over time, they introduced a variety of innovations for manufacturing them, and captured almost all of the market. (source, source)

1913: The first use of the word "coaster." This became the more common term for the increasingly popular beermats and table accessories. As the dictionary says, a "coaster" was originally a round wheeled tray that would "coast" around a table, used to serve beverages. 

1931: An Australian trademark for the Kookaburra Cigarette Paper Tube Manufacturing Company showed two kookaburras smoking -- this image then appeared on coasters. (source)

1939 New York World's Fair: The Ballantine Inn produced coasters that could be mailed like a postcard, with a place for the address written on the back -- and a stamp.

1940s - 1950s: Piel's brewery of Brooklyn, NY, advertised its beer with coasters that had different cartoon characters holding up a glass of beer. (source)

1960s and 70s: Coasters were becoming more popular in England, Australia, and around the globe.

A French Beer Coaster

1979: The Katz group, which dominated the production of advertising coasters, opened coaster-manufacturing plants in New York and Tennessee to make coasters for American advertisers.

A German beer coaster.

2009: The Katz group, still responsible for 60% of European coasters and 97% of American coasters, declared bankruptcy, but they were saved by Kohler, a global paper company. In the US, they produce something like 1.5 billion coasters a year. (source, source)

Toucans: in the Guinness ad campaign since 1954.

2014: The New York Library Association targeted legislators in Albany, New York, by placing advertising coasters in bars where these legislators were drinking. The legislators soon voted to restore $4 million in library funding -- maybe influenced by the coasters. A Restaurant Association later ran a similar coaster-ad campaign in Albany to influence the vote on New York's blue laws.

2016: Over 1000 different advertising coasters were exhibited at the Kyneton Museum in New South Wales, Australia, in a show called "Coast to Coasters." The exhibit included a vast collection owned by an Australian collector as well as a collection of German advertising coasters from the 1950s.

Terry Moore and his coaster collection at his pub.
He loaned the collection to the Kyneton Museum for "Coast to Coasters." (source)

NOW: The Guinness Book of World Records has an entry for the largest collection of coasters: 152,860 different designs from 192 countries collected by Leo Pisker of Langenzersdorf, Austria. Many collectors' organizations and advertisements for collectible coasters can be found by simple web searches. (source)

Coasters from the Kona Brewing Company in Kona, Hawaii.
A wonderful place to have a beer and a hamburger!

Blog post © 2022 mae sander, images as credited.

Shared with Elizabeth and her weekly blog party.