Pour Le Merite

[Leroy]

... no reason Schickle couldn't be making the type for the consortium and using the most prominent relevant mark belonging to the allied group of companies, and/or Schickle marketing the cross on behalf of the same outfit (who actually made it, that is, perhaps being of less immediate importance).

Or maybe even Deumer of Ludenscheid (for Godet) and the Schickle catalog page insert is a Deumer insert instead?

(One other thing (and this is a HUGE stretch and probably coincidental), in the other thread it is noted that Dora Godet and George Kaiser owned "Godet & Co." immediately after the war. The Kaiser family (Max Kaiser, specifically) was the nephew of August Steinhauer of Steinhauer and Luck, of Ludenscheid, and ran the company until he went into the Army in World War 2, when Max Luck took over. The Kaiser family is still heavily involved in S&L, in Ludenscheid, today, just a few hundred yards from Deumer. Family relationships can produce interesting results sometimes.)

[Biro]

And...sorry, my friend, but those two minis, while very close, are not identical! Check out the pie slices: the hole is not at the same height relative to the cross body (and that cannot be a variation in hand finishing). There are other subtle metallic differences--angle of the hyphens, for instance, and the shaping of the wing-thigh spaces; one might argue the latter two, but the suspension can't be explained otherwise. It can't be drilling variation, either (in case that would be suggested to explain the difference), as the p. 295 example has a raised rim around the hole front and back, implying it had to be formed in place as is. The other one may have such a rim, too, but harder to tell.

A tribute to the sense these had to have a particular "right" form! So...evidence they were working off different dies???

This argument has a familiar ring to it...

OK - so let's try it again, this time taking the suspension out of the equation and using the OTHER mini PLM on page 300 of Prussian Blue with no suspension. It's also a J Godet & Sohn product (on the right) and comparing it to the Gebr Godet product (on the left).

Either you are suggesting that Gebr Godet commisioned a new die to differentiate their product from that of their (by now) fiercest rival J Godet & Sohn and asked the master graveur to 'alter the angles of some of the hyphens and the shaping of the wing-thigh spaces a bit' but leave the rest identical, or you are flat out wrong.

These are 19mm high Jim - manufacturing tolerances and finishing variances account for any of the subtle differences. Please don't make me post multiple miniscule examples of why these are the same die... I haven't got the energy..

Marshall

[Biro]

Damn - my memberships expired and I can't post the pictures!!

Maybe Greg can do it for me?

Marshall

[Zepenthusiast]

Marshall, with all due respect--and I do mean that!--I am not the one declaring things to be "irrefutably the same"--I will agree readily that all the minis labeled "J. Godet & Sohn" are clearly from the same dies, but you are going to have a hard time selling me on that on p. 295 coming from the same die as that on p. 300: look at the tail feathers on the 10:30 and 4:30 birds. There are distinctively sloped gaps visible between the triangle of the feathers in all the "JG&S" minis, but no such at all on the Gebr. Godet version, wherein the edges of the feather vanes are quite parallel to the edge of the cross arm. Ditto the serif at the base of the F: well isolated in the center for the Gebr. Godet version, nearly touching the edge of the cross arm in all of the "JG&S" minis pictured. These are aspects of the metal stamping, and are fingerprints of the manufacture, as you usually argue! I should be the first to conjure up enamel variation as explanatory of the latter, but as you say, these are tiny creations, all the more susceptible to die effects, and those pictured are essentially identical when labeled J. Godet & Sohn, and are not when Gebr. Godet is named. So, I'd argue that in this case, presumption must be against the claim of "identical", unless you are willing to bring out an example (or more) of a "Gebruder Godet" marked version with tail feathers and and F matching the J. Godet & Sohn findings noted above, within reason. Again, there are two J. Godet & Sohn versions pictured which are identical in these regards!

[Zepenthusiast]

Posting these for Marshall--very nice side-by-side!--but helps to make my points! Look at the "F" base serifs, the eagle feathers at 10:30 and 4"30, and at the wing to head spacing, the top of the little "e" vs the dip in the middle of the "M", the shape of the crown, the horizontal arm width doesn't match, either--the one on the left has a left arm longer than the right arm....





I rest my case

[Biro]

I know you understand that the cutouts around the thighs, heads, feathers etc... were hand-filed by a human working on a 19mm effigy and that therefore they are going to be (and plainly are) random... (the Gebr Godet on the left is not finished as well as the J Godet on the right, nor are the finer features of the Gebruder as well defined) so it confounds me that you would use the 'head to wing' spacing as some sort of criteria??

Once again, we find ourselves disagreeing over what is more important, the fact that there are small differences in areas predominantly concerning enamel overlap, hand finishing, etc... versus the fact that there are key identifiers akin to a die-flaw which show these HAVE to have come from the same die.


For instance, you would look at something like this little 'wishbone' type pattern on the tailfeathers of the 4.30 eagle and contest that it is COMPLETE coincidence that they appear in the same place on the same eagle of two COMPLETELY different dies?

I would look at it and say the exact opposite.

Can I suggest therefore that we throw it open to the other informed readers to decide... readers who know they are looking at a photograph, a 19mm miniature, two mini's at slightly different angles, how this PLM is made, and the effects of hand finishing.

OUT!

Marshall

[Les]

Marshall, the pieces appear to be the same, but that doesn't necessarily prove there were being made by the two different firms at the same time, using two identical or close to identical dies or molds.

Can you be positive when the split occurred, there were two sets of dies? The badge portion of the mini device could have been cranked out in one production run, and when the split took place, the stock could have been split up between the firms, or even one getting the dies, and another taking the remaining stock.

After the split, the two firms could have assembled and/or finished items, and even removed old buttons with the other firms maker marks, and replaced them with their own buttons.

Too many overly certain sounding assertions are being made on some very slim "evidence" at this time.

[Les]

Marshall, the pieces appear to be the same, but that doesn't necessarily prove there were being made by the two different firms at the same time, using two identical or close to identical dies or molds. Typically, when a firm makes an item, there is a production run of more than one or to items in a batch and a small run of 10 or 20 mini's made, but not completed until needed, would have been enough inventory to last one firm for quite a long time.

Can you be positive when the split occurred, there were two sets of dies? The badge portion of the mini device could have been cranked out in one production run, and when the split took place, the stock could have been split up between the firms, or even one getting the dies, and another taking the remaining stock.

After the split, the two firms could have assembled and/or finished items, and even removed old buttons with the other firms maker marks, and replaced them with their own buttons.

[gregM]

I believe that both minis came from the same die.

[Pas de croix]

What do say about this one?
http://70.87.163.50/forums/showthread.php?t=492196

[streptile]

I believe that both minis came from the same die.

I agree.

Marshall, the pieces appear to be the same, but that doesn't necessarily prove there were being made by the two different firms at the same time, using two identical or close to identical dies or molds.

That is not what I was suggesting, anyway. I was suggesting that the J. Godet minis were made before 1930, and that Gebrüder Godet ended up with the tooling, which would be instructive. But of course this is also a possibility:

The badge portion of the mini device could have been cranked out in one production run, and when the split took place, the stock could have been split up between the firms, or even one getting the dies, and another taking the remaining stock.

[Zepenthusiast]

Gentlemen, I'm sorry to be a gadfly about this, but you are seeing what you want to see in these. Your "wishbone", Marshall, is the eagle's foot--not a die flaw--and is present accordingly on each of the birds in one way or another (little arrows). The arm length is substantially asymmetric in the one, and that is not a tilt to the cross/camera angle, because such would also effectively shorten the proximal arm in a symmetric structure and change the apparent angles of the notches in the cross arm ends. The circled heads are different beak structures in a way not readily explainable by finishing. The length of the arms relative to the eagles really doesn't match. I realize the spacing between the eagles and the cross body will be effected greatly by filing, but the actual spacing of the body parts is different, even accounting for that! I have circled two wing tips in which the feathers are not curving the same, even if you filed away part of the wing.

Sure, the same people likely designed both and/or made them to similar requirements. If J. Godet & Sohn ended up with the "original" mini dies, it would be logical the Gebr. Godet would make something pretty darn similar to what they made before, but these are too far from identical to insist they are of one and the same stamping.

[Biro]

...Your "wishbone", Marshall, is the eagle's foot--not a die flaw--and is present accordingly on each of the birds in one way or another (little arrows)...

Hi Jim

I'll be honest - I nearly wrote this whole conversation off in total frustration as a result of your quote above, but I've calmed down now so if we're going to continue our lively discourse, then I really would appreciate being accurately quoted mate.

The 'wishbone' is not a die-flaw, and I never said it was a die flaw. What I said was...

...there are key identifiers akin to a die-flaw which show these HAVE to have come from the same die...

...and that little wishbone shaped 'foot' was one of them. It (among other things) is present on both mini's in the same place and of the same 'wishbone' shape, rather than the more zig-zagged pattern of the other feet.

But I cannot force you to see what I see. Your perogative is to disagree and that is totally fine.

I'm not suggesting there were two different dies (Les), totally the opposite. I'm not offering a time frame and I'm not making ANY other observations other than that I agree with Trevor that the Gebr Godet and J Godet minis are from the same tooling. That may well have been a result of a total die moving from one company to the other, it may well be parts moving from one to the other, I don't know and I am not offering conjecture on that.

For the next few images, I have used a third and different 'J Godet and Sohn' mini (found in Prussian Blue pg 333) which you earlier agreed are all the same as each other.

I hope the following better images enable you to see what I (and now 3 others) see, but if not, we shall agree to disagree and move on. I am convinced.

Cheers

Marshall

[Biro]

Does this offer a better comparison of the beaks of the 2.30 eagle for you which you have circled above?

In my eyes, short of some poor finishing and a particularly bad casting on the Gebr Godet (left), they are easily comparible...

The Gebr Godet is on the left, the J Godet on the right - and remember, its a different J Godet to the one we have already used so far..

[Biro]

And here are the two top right wing tips which you noted had feathers that were not curving the same (and I totally agree, in the previous photo, they were appearing not to.)

This time, there is different filing work on the J Godet (right) and the corresponding feathers curve in equal fashion, do you agree?