Originally posted by USGI
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USGI, if you go back and re-read what I said about the Cejalvo firm making a batch of ten copies, I did not say the firm only made ten and then never made any more. Jim has correctly pointed out, no one outside the firm itself knows how many were ever made. It's quite possible someone else might have wanted 10, 20, 30, or hundreds made to sell on the collector market. Apparently the cost of making several at one time make it worth their while and allows the unit price per copy to come down.
I have personally held a Cejalvo and hollow gold Godet marked piece in hand at the same time, and made numerous measurements, compared weights, and a variety of critical details not easily seen in a photograph. The two appear very similar in photos, but they are not the same. There are significant differences between them.
Marshall is no fan of the hollow gold marked Godet pieces. The Cejalvo's bear an uncanny resemblance to them, but they are not identical. The hollow gold construction versus the soiid silver construction is readily apparent, and the gas vents holes are not drilled as Previtera has asserted in "Prussian Blue." The Cejalvo eagles are smaller than those on the Godet marked pieces and appear to have been molded, suggesting they were copied from the Godet piece (or as Jim would probably suggest, one very much like it).
Print out the photos of each and place them side by side. The eagle feet on the "C" and the Godet marked pieces do not line up in the lettering below in the same locations.
The color of the enamel is not the same. Similar, but not the same.
The side profile of the two crosses have different angles, and the hollow gold Godet marked pieces are much thicker, have different weights; the size and placement of the suspension loops are not located in the same place in the "V" on the solid silver types, and differ from the hollow gold examples.
There are other details, but for now, that's all I'm going into.
The GODET marking on the hollow gold pieces usually results in objections these pieces can't be real, because they don't fit the typical Godet "type." That's true for Godet made piece prior to the very early 1930's, but no one knows exactly what Godet did or did not make after circa 1936. The pre-1936 Godet catalogs are an indication of what they made around certain time periods, but that does not mean the firm continued making any particular type after the catalog came out. We simply don't know, and can't say for a fact, the firm did or did not make -any- particular style.
There is also the element of provenance for at least four hollow gold pieces with Godet markings. I'm not including the Weitze "1950's" one among them. Bob Hritz, a WAF forum member owns the "Hermann Goering" attributed piece. Elsewhere on this forum, he has described how he came to acquire it, something of it's background (a vet bring back), and given his long service as a former Chicago police officer and well-known collector with a very impressive collection of militaria, has no reason to lie about the background of the piece.
There are three others I know of with various degrees of provenance. I know of another piece that is/was a vet bring back, and part of a grouping of related items that firmly established who the (German) items belonged to. The other two are not as firmly identifiable. One is in the collection of a former President of OMSA, and the fourth is a well-known German collection.
The presence of these four with pre-1947 associations (that's when all four of the WWI vets who were PLM Ritter were dead by that date), and with Weitze saying there's a hollow gold piece dating from a 1950's era collection, there is a growing amount of evidence suggesting Godet in the very late 1930's (1938 or later?) departed from the traditional Godet PlM style, and made something different.
One "provanced" piece is always open to argument, however, there are others with varying degrees of provenance, and this suggests the evidence for a hollow gold Godet marked PlM be considered something very different from the solid silver copies that closely resemble the "Godet" marked pieces.
USGI....one last thing. Contact Cejalvo and ask them whatever questions you would like answered. You'll find they are willing to make PlM copies for you, but they will be very elusive about what they've done in the past, etc.
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