Table medal / paper weight

[gregM]

Here is a piece that caught my eye.

It's a new in the box table metal.
The piece was sold by----
"Wollenberger & Co"
105 So. La Salle st.
Chicago.

[gregM]

The inscription in the bottom of the box reads.

"In Memory of the great war and your loyalty to the old country."

The stamp is a US 5 cent stamp. Unfortunately the cancellation
date is not readable, I am guessing sometime in the mid 1920s.

[gregM]

I blocked out the buyers name just in case he or his family
is still around.

[MauserKar98k]

These are really cool! This is only the second one that I have seen in the original box

[Don D.]

Probably from the thirties. I think the twenties might have been a little early for the "hun" to be commemorating things stateside. In the thirties the German American Bund was in full swing and alot of people admired what was happening in Germany as far as their economic recovery was going.

[Curt Steinbach]

I love stuff like this. The stamp itself was issued in 1917 (5 cent George Washington) which of course means nothing.

http://www.stampcatalogue.org/2008/1...amps-1917.html

Then I tried to find out about Herman Wollenberger and found the following:

Wollenberger, Hermann, Banker of 105
South LaSalle _Street,. was born in 1867, in
Germany. In 1884-93 he
was engaged in the bank-
ing business in Germany
and Belgium; 1893-6 was
with the Illinois Trust and
Savings Bank; and was
Vice-President of the West-
ern Trust and Savings
Bank, until 1908, when he
organized the banking firm
of Wollenberger & Co. He is a member of
the Bankers, Ravisloe Country, Hampden, and
German Clubs, and Schwaben Verein.

I found next to nothing on the company itself except there are calendars out there. Likely for customers.

Then I found this article from 1930

http://flps.newberry.org/article/5418474_3_1_1172

There are even FBI case files from 1909 - 1921 but you have to sign up to actually read them.

http://www.fold3.com/browsemore/hhqJ...yoDswaVMY4R_1/

So it doesn't answer when this was made but it could even be in the 20s I suppose if there were a lot of German immigrants and that could be possible with inflation in Germany and people trying to get away from the hardships there. A patriotic item for recent immigrants?

Curt

[gregM]

Thanks Curt.
That seems to tell us that Wollenberger gave these to his customers.
Which means we still don't know who made them or where.