I have an example of this plaque. I had a custom wooden frame made for it and mounted it upon my office wall. I’ve often speculated that as a “memoriam” plaque the bottom area, blank in Harry Waterson’s piece (as in mine), was meant to hold a photograph of a loved one departed during action in the war, perhaps protected by a glass or other transparent barrier. There is a cartouche below that space for an engraved insert with their name I presume.

I believe if Harry examines his a bit more closely he’ll find that it’s marked as being manufactured by the Gorham Company “For Our Hero’s, Inc.” (an inscription on the lower right quadrant counterbalancing the lower left notation of the engraver, Fyscher). There’s also a patent on the piece if he digs a bit (dated November 6, 1917) and a copyright G55126 if my notes are close to correct.

Beautiful piece. I’ve seen specimens of Wilson’s portion cut out from the plaque and sold as a separate piece. By grave robbers perhaps? Who knows. I’d love to know more about it and it’s use, but I’ve had to satisfy myself mostly with speculation at this point.

The WWI 'In Memoriam' Plaque I wrote about last week was on eBay and I did not purchase it so I defer to Greg Burns as to what is inscribed on the bottom of the plaque. I was quoting what the seller wrote. Gorham is new news and a great bit of source information. It is too bad that all the Gorham records are in permanent off-site storage at Brown University and are unavailable to researchers. I did find the © number and included that entry in my piece. The numbers match but the © number in the register refers only to the Wilson portrait and not the plaque. I believe Maximilian Fyscher was taking a bigger bite of the apple than was actually proper when he indicated the whole plaque was under copyright.

I would dearly love to see a photo of Greg Burns's plaque. Does the empty socket also have the Indian Head profile?

I like the idea of a personal memorial in the empty socket. But that would mean that only 11 of the 12 Allies were named on the plaque. Further research is definitely indicated. That an empty socket has appeared on two examples of the plaque certainly begs the question. I thank Greg Burns for telling E-Sylum about his plaque and I thank E-Sylum for creating this forum in which this kind of an exchange can take place. Many thanks

Here's a bit of a close-up on the empty-space portion of my plaque. As you can see, there’s no “Indian head” or spot of solder/adhesive in the middle that’s visible. I picked mine up several years ago off of eBay for something like $26 (a bargain). The part mentioning the Gorman Company is extremely faint, almost like someone perhaps tried to obliterate it, so I wonder if all of them were so made. Until Harry’s mention in The E-Sylum I had wondered if I’d ever see another, and would love to be able to find out more about it if any other readers have info to offer.