The museum has a lovely stock of wooden moulds from the Dreiblmayr-Zehentner gingerbread bakery in Ried. Gingerbread bakers not only processed the honey for traditional lebkuchen gingerbread, they also used the empty honeycombs to make candles and wax figures. The warmed wax was poured into wooden moulds, known as models in German.

There were different types of models.

Flat models were used to make gingerbread and wax figures. 

Two-part models were used to make three-dimensional products such as figures of saints and votive offerings. Votive offerings made of wax – models of animals or parts of the body, for instance – were left at places of pilgrimage. Prayers of petition said alongside them aimed to heal eyes, arms, legs or the animal in question. It is less well known that the offering of a toad, the symbol for the womb, was thought to carry women’s complaints and the desire for children to God.