By Heinz-Peter Bader

Remember the James Bond film Goldfinger and how the characters handled the gold bars without even thinking of their weight? Each gold bar at Fort Knox weighs about 12 kilos (24 pounds), as much as six six-packs of beer. But they could certainly buy you a lot more Champagne!

I witnessed gold bar production at Austria’s Oegussa company. A one kilo (two pound) gold bar is only about the size of a small mobile phone. It was impressive to hold something of so much value – as of November 15, each of the Oegussa 1 kilo gold bars would sell for 43,854 euros ($61,264).

The other side of the coin (or should I say gold bar) is where the plain gold comes from. All kinds of golden rings, bracelets, and necklaces are poured into the furnace, melting together and leaving no trace of the private stories behind the former jewellery.

The resulting massive block of gold, yet still slightly contaminated by other substances, is the base for a complex process to gain 999.9 pure gold granules eventually. They look like tiny nuggets, before they are melted a last time to be poured into molds to reach the final gold bar shape.

A couple of advertising-style photos completed my story. Too bad, I couldn’t take a “sample” home, a very, very tiny bit only, maybe…? Just kidding.

By Heinz Peter-Bader

A collector once said: “When you buy your first pinball machine, it is fine with your wife. When you buy your second pinball machine, she asks “Why? You have one already”. After number three and four she believes you must be crazy. But after the fifth pinball machine she proudly tells her friends that her husband is a collector.’

Guenter “Pindigi” Freinberger from Austria owns 493 pinball machines. Well, 492 actually, after my visit…

Freinberger’s pinball museum is located inside a storage depot some 80 km (50 miles) west of Vienna and nothing indicates that it contains one of the world’s biggest pinball collections. Historic machines from the 1930′s up to top modern models are all on display, in top shape and ready to play.

But for a pinball aficianado the most fascinating part is the second floor storage room. Hundreds of pinball machines are stored edgewise, with their backboxes dismounted, side by side. Some of the most precious ones are wrapped in plastic film to protect them. It feels like a journey across centuries walking through an endless maze of pinball history.

With the rise of video games, the end of the big pinball era began in the late 1990′s. If it was not for collectors like “Pindigi” Freinberger, most pinball machines would probably have disappeared for good, smashed like in The Who’s musical film “Tommy”, removed from bars and amusement halls, destroyed and forgotten.

Like most collectors, Freinberger restores and repairs the machines himself and sells duplicate versions – don’t miss your favorite machine and let the pinball dreams of the past come true!

It was a beautiful late summer day with blue sky and not a single cloud when I went to the village of Piber some 200 km (124 miles) west of Vienna to see the world famous Lipizzaner horses. Well, actually, the 40 young studs were not famous yet, but some of them would be selected to become famous some day – members of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.

SLIDESHOW: DANCING HORSES OF VIENNA

The young Lipizzaners spend their summers in the mountains, and the return back to the stud is traditionally celebrated. They are decorated with flowers, receive blessings in front of the local church and are presented to the people before they arrive at their stable after a 16 km (10 mile) walk.

The biggest challenge for photographers was the speed that they walk at. There was no time for me to “walk” as I needed to look for nice picture backgrounds in advance, run to be ready in time, photograph the flock on their way down the trail, run again to be ready at the next spot and so on. I really enjoyed the eventual arrival at the church for a short rest, in bright sunshine during one of the hottest days in September.

The journey went on after the blessings – walking for the horses, running for me – until we arrived in the city of Koeflach for the presentation to the people. The show was over, but work continued. I went to the stable by car and waited for the Lipizzaners to arrive. It seemed they could hardly wait to return home eventually – they were neighing, running around, jumping and playing with each other.

Summer was over for them and so was my assignment. Maybe I will recognize one of the youngsters, with plain white skin and after an education of six years, during a show at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.

The Alternatieve Elfstedentocht (Alternative 11-City Race) has been a Dutch tradition since 1974. The original version in Friesland, an ice skating race over 200 km (124 miles) through 11 towns linked by canals, rivers and lakes, dates back many centuries. As the local waters don’t freeze over so easily anymore, the Dutch started looking for alternatives in other countries and organized an Alternatieve Elfstedentocht at lake Weissensee in Austria’s Carinthia Province in 1989 for the first time.

Nowadays the Alternatieve Elfstedentocht Weissensee is a two-week event with some 6,000 participants, mostly Dutch amateur speed skaters. A day before one of the 200 km races I went to shoot an event officially called the Frisian Shorttrack Championships, with athletes wearing traditional wooden skates and clothes, which turned out to be a fun race. Some 30 women, men and a boy competed in several knock-out races over 110 meters (yards) each, drinking traditional liquor between the heats, struggling more with their clothes than with the ice sometimes.

On the way to the competition I met Norbert Jank, the ice keeper of lake Weissensee, responsible for the preparation of the tracks and the one person to decide if the lake is frozen well enough for the event to take place. Well… it was. Mr. Jank took me out to the middle of the lake by car, grabbed his power saw and began carving deep into the ice. The piece he cut out was an impressive block some 40cm high (15 inches) – the thickness of the ice. It was not enough that Mr. Jank was proud of “his” ice, he wanted to demonstrate the lake’s drinking water quality, so he kneeled down and drank right out of the lake.

The race was scheduled to start at 7 the next morning. I had pictures in my mind of the 1,100 athletes crowding the start, but… 7 the next morning turned out to be dark night – the lake is located 930 meters (yards) above sea level in between the alps. Participants wore lights mounted on their foreheads and had their faces covered to protect themselves from the cold. It was -16 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit).

Two hours later the sun rose above the mountains, it remained a cold but sunny winter day, giving me some opportunities to make beautiful pictures of the event. Again, this day’s competition was not so much about winning a race but rather all of the amateur racers competing against themselves to eventually finish 200 kilometers of skating on lake Weissensee sometime in the afternoon.