Each piece is then carefully prepared so that it can be encased in real bronze metal. A catalog of theirs from the 1950s states: “Our skilled craftsmen hand cast each piece into ‘Cerama-Stone’, a scientific exclusive formula which permits high fidelity reproduction. Production by the couple continued until they retired and sold the business in 1958 - with the subsequent owner continuing production until 1971. Alas, it was not to be … they should have stayed with bookends, since by 1918 Kathodion Bronze Works had filed for bankruptcy.įounded in 1922 by Arthur and Marion France, the Marion Bronze Company produced bronze-clad bookends, lamps, candlesticks, mirrors, wall plaques, and religious statuettes at a small production facility behind their house in Metuchen, New Jersey. Bergmann profited from trumping up KBW stock in a push to raise capital forty-fold, with the stock skyrocketing from $3 to almost $70 per share. KBW was first promoted as a contractor to supply auto tire stems, then to supply ammunition for World War I. In 1915 they fell victim to one of Wall Street’s most notorious stock manipulation schemes - cooked up by C.R. Despite many fine products, the company was short-lived. The ad also states: “Artbronz is the standard of perfection and has been for the past five years” putting their likely founding at about 1910. The print advertisement at right, from 1914, lists their retail address at 501 Fifth Avenue in New York City. KBW marketed their products using the trade name ‘ARTBRONZ’, and sold ‘Book Rocks’ (bookends), lamps, ashtrays, and more. Some references state that the company was sold to its employees, later to become the Pompeian Bronze Company.

Early advertising suggests that the company may have initially produced architectural products in bronze-clad. (Their label reads: Galvano Bronze, P.Mori & Son, hence the obvious practice of appending ‘Company’ to its trade name.) The company appears to have been founded in 1889, but some references list 1915 as the earliest date for a pair of bookends. Although the electroforming process was discovered around 1830 in Europe, it was recent immigrant Paul Mori who founded the first sizable commercial venture that used the process - and coined the trade name ‘Galvano Bronze’ to market their products. The term ‘galvano bronze’ is essentially generic, it was often used by all of the makers in their literature to refer to the galvanic process that is the physics behind electroplating and electroforming. The company resurfaces in Taunton Massachusetts in the mid-1930’s, with production ceasing around 1948.

Attesting to their range of products, the ad also states: “This lamp is only one of many Armor Bronze Lamps and Works of Art, Doorstops, Bookends and Trays of exceptional beauty and charm.” During this period ‘Armor Bronze’ was advertised right alongside the company name beginning around 1920 National Metalizing was dropped and they became the Armor Bronze Company. The print advertisement at right, from 1915, lists their studio and showroom at 333 Fourth Avenue in New York City their main office and factory was in Garwood, New Jersey. While some folks seem to think that the company was in business as far back as 1880, our research leads us to believe 1910 is closer to the actual founding date. The company we know as Armor Bronze started as The National Metalizing Company. From our research: A brief history of the companies that produced bronze-clad. The Art Deco aesthetic originated in Paris in the early decades of the 20th century and affected all areas of design through the 1920s and 1930s, and so falls between Art Nouveau (1890-1905) and the post-World War II art movement of Abstract expressionism. The Roaring Twenties fostered a thriving business for a handful of US companies working in bronze-clad, producing a large variety of bookends, figurines, and religious statuettes. Most bronze-clad bookends were made during the Art Deco Period of 1920 to 1935.

Kbw art bronze elephant bookends