The Era: The inclusion of this font style and application dates the piece to somewhere between 1920 and 1939. The "FOREIGN" StampThis mark is a political and legal stamp used strictly for trade tracking.The Origin: In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, strict trade laws (like the McKinley Tariff Act of 1891 in the US and similar merchandise acts in the UK) forced manufacturers to declare where goods were made.The Purpose: Following World War I, anti-German and anti-Axis sentiment in the UK led to British laws allowing products from former enemy countries (primarily Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia) to simply be stamped "FOREIGN" instead of naming their specific country of origin.
