GDR border pillars like these marked the GDR's state border from the fall of 1967 onward. The black, red, and gold-painted concrete pillars bore an aluminum sign with the GDR's coat of arms and the inscription "German Democratic Republic" below the top. Souvenir hunters apparently stole the metal plaque from this pillar. In total, there were 2,735 such pillars along the inner-German border, from the Baltic Sea to the border triangle with Czechoslovakia. The border pillars only roughly indicate the border; the exact border line was documented using small square border stones with a cross on top.