A Belgian maker I have never heard of on a Zanzibar Brilliant Star Breast star

[paul wood]

A friend of mine sent me an illustration of a Zanzibar Order of the Brilliant Star breast star with the toughra of Khalifa ibn bin Said (1888-90), which looks like, condition wise, it has been used as a football, the reverse plate has the following maker's details "Compagnie Belge d' Ordres et insignes 13 rue Lebeau, Bruxelles". Any one have any information of the makers. I have never encountered them before.

 

All the best,

 

Paul

[GM1]

I've found this annoucement several times in the publication: "L'Expansion belge", Volumen 4, numbers 1-6) of 1911.

 

 

https://books.google.es/books?id=oqtBAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA176-IA2&dq="13+rue+Lebeau",+Bruxelles&hl=es&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpvTZuo73AhV7gP0HHYb9AvYQ6AF6BAgGEAI#v=onepage&q="13 rue Lebeau"%2C Bruxelles&f=false

 

Best regards,

 

GM1

 

[paul wood]

Thank you GMI, most interesting. Obviously the company was around for at least 30 years, I wonder if any one has any information concerning the Orders and Decorations made by this company, be Interesting to see here

 

an image of said piece, the enamel on the other side is quite smashed.

 

Paul

[VC89]

I checked the almanac of the city of Brussels. Campagnies Belge appears for the first time at this adress in the edition of 1911. The two edition before it, it was unused and before that there was a butcher located on the adress.

 

It was still there in the edition of 1914 but in the next available edition of 1920* the building was unused again. In the 1922 edition, I couldn't find the name of the company in the catagory "Engravers" of "Medalists". In 1921, a designer was located at this adress.

 

My guess would be that they ceased to exist during the war since Brussels was occupied by Germany from 1914 till 1918. The demand for medals from a Belgian maker would be low and materials would have been harder to get.

 

 

*I don't know if the editions between 1914-1920 are missing in the collection of the archive of Brussels or that they weren't printed due to the First World War.

[Graf]

That is something special I never came across this maker

Nice finding Well done