video w/ Merkel ID stamping @ 1 minute runtime I can't import a still image from this video but you can pause at 1:02" to see a Merkel Freres stamping. I can't believe this was roll-stamped; misalignment of individual letters is very prominent suggesting individual punches weren't even aligned with a straitedge or stencil. Done today with what's available is a good definition of expediency.
One must assume the gun in video to be pre-WWII production as we don't have a serial or date stamp. I have no idea about trade barriers between France and Germany by 1935 (Raimey's Cornell catalogue). I doubt that the Weimar Republic had what we would now call "preferred nation" status; perhaps the punitive conditions of the Versailles treaty were fulfilled or relaxed by this time. What is clear to me is that choice of language (Freres) reflects the choice of marketing target. Not quite in a league with Eibar (or Birmingham) who would no doubt stamp a gun "Stumpy's Gun&Hdware" for a price but certainly evidencing guns not made for domestic sale. I don't see (if indeed there was an invocation of this idea by Raimey?) the necessity of an international manufacturing combine with a finishing shop in St. Etienne making an end run around trade barriers but I suppose there's a possibility there.
jack
