Crafts workers were forbidden from forming guilds in Nuremberg after the Craftsmen's Uprising of 1348. Nevertheless, the city still had its own collectives and confraternities of the individual crafts, each preserving its own specific customs.
Specially designed objects, such as craftsmen's chests, signs for inns, banners, and so forth, were indispensable for certain businesses and events. When the old craftsmen's organizations were disbanded in 1868, these relics of guild-like traditions passed into the city's hands. Today most of the municipal craft antiques collection is preserved at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum on permanent loan from the City of Nuremberg.