Occasionally a stein collector will come across the description of a beer stein written entirely in German. It's nice to know how to decipher it, but critical to understand it if it appears in an auction catalog! While an illustration goes a long way to recognizing what we are looking at, gaining an understanding of the description, especially if there is any damage, is essential. This is a U-Build-It Glossary of German stein collecting terms. We've seeded it with a few terms, but would like our visitors to make further contributions, or to comment on the definitions we have provided. It is presented in alphabetical order, like a dictionary, to ease the task of looking up unfamiliar words. Please send your contributions or comments to us by email. We thank Joe Gehres for his help in reviewing this material and offering suggestions before it was published.