Another nice example of these old stock. They came about 15 years ago to surface. There are some facts that indicate these unused tallies come from the former "Marinehaus Finke" in Wilhelmshaven.
Some dealers bought the largest number from this stock, i also took about 1.000 tallies in commission. They are all gone, exept some Schiffsstammabteilung-tallies.
I have also still some curious tallies "Marinesanitätsschule". Behind the the woven letters you can still see that they were woven as "Marinesanitätsschule Wilhelmshaven", a tally that never was introduced. So, the word Wilhelmshaven was removed from the tally and the company of Fritz Finke sold them, wrapped in this rice paper, as Marinesanitätsschule. But you still can clearly see the microscopig small holes and the complete "shadow" of the word Wilhelmshaven. I will try to make pictures of this curios tallies.
Here some pics of the tally "Marinesanitätsschule Wilhelmshaven" with the word "Wilhelmshaven" removed. These were woven for the company of Marinehaus Fritz Finke in Wilihelmshaven, awaiting this designation for the school. Later, they were sold without W´haven. Still some in stock if someone is interested in.
Perhaps they knew a trick to ripp the thread out of the tally. There were some bundles of 10each in the stock. They were sold als simple Marinesanitätsschule.
I would also assume that the lettering would be skewed/augmented and not centered.
Looking straight at the lettering obverse, the right side would be longer than the left from the end to when lettering script began?
@Justin: i would also guess, that the lettering is not centered. But - it is ! Nearly 160cm long and perfectly centered. May be, "Wilhelmshaven" was ripped of, before they were cut from al roll ?
I know also some rare examples in some collections with the complete lettering "Marineschule Wilhelmshaven".
Could you please show a closeup of the reverse of the Wilhelmshaven shadow?
Looking at this tally and talking to my wife (who is a weaver), we just can't imagine that the gold thread was laboriously picked out after being complexly interwoven. As you know these were mass produced on a Jacquard loom controlled by punch cards. More likely the machine was set up differently for these tallies, so that the gold thread was omitted from the weft but with the "Wilhelmshaven" name still contained in the card program? That would seem to make more sense, especially since "Marinesanitätsschule" was centered properly in cut tally, especially if they were mass produced.
As an aside, for reference here's a Youtube video with on overview the complex workings of a 1930's Jacquard loom (although not set up for ribbons). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Zzj9ZBYmQ
And here are a couple of museum photos of ribbon setups on Jacquard looms (although not German). The first is an image from Wikipedia Commons from the Herbert Art Museum and Gallery, Coventry and the second is from Kathryn Sanderson's website article on a tour of the Musée du Jacquard in Roubaix, Northern France.
A while back, I noticed that there was a geographical distinction between font types. Yours (and others from the North Sea training units) have what I call "Extended Type A" font whereas tallies from the Ostsee (Baltic Sea) side have what I call the "Condensed Type A" font. (There are also Condensed Types B and C). The "extended" font is so named because it appears slightly more spread out than the "condensed" fonts. This would seem to indicate that the North Sea units had different suppliers than the Baltic Sea units.
Here you can see the differences between these two and you'll see yours matches the first.
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