Posted 12 years ago
Militarist
(288 items)
In 1906 the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis incorporated itself as a city and had a watch fob made up to commemorate the event. The reverse of the fob proudly features the new city seal which had only one minor problem in that the name West Allis was misspelled as one word. What about the obverse? Like most fobs of the era the state seal was called for and the manufacturer picked a really nice one with a knight's helmet on top and two bears at the sides. I guess they must have thought that West Allis was really in Missouri. I wonder who had to grin and bear it that time ?
Nice piece of history from nearby . Are those bears as there are no bears in West Allis but I thought they looked like deer or huge rabbits ?
Very nice and thanks for sharing !
Yes those are bears! The art work is not very good but that is a State of Missouri coat of arms including the bears.
I quess our state got confused ? :-) Great find
This fob was privately made. The State arms die was a stock die since many fobs were made using the various state arms at that time. The die was possibly put in the Wisconsin space by mistake and the worker making this piece probably never realized the mistake or may not have known the difference even if he looked at the design. The die cutter who spelled West Allis as one word wasn't having a good day either.