Anyone seen a cookset like this before?

[Biker]

Lame question I know, but I haven't seen one quite like this before and I'm a bit of a cookset hoarder. What caught my eye was the closer and handle/hanger system of the biggest pot.

I bought it at a bootfair on Sunday and gave it a really good clean up this morning, it hadn't seen washing liquid in decades.

It's 6 inches diameter and about 4 inches deep, made in aluminium. I bought it here in France. It also has some home made engraving work done on it. I at first thought Gizele was the owner's name however, Giselle is a girl's name which makes me wonder if the illiterate owner was engraving his wife or girlfriend's name into his kit. Sounds like a nice little passtime to me while dodging shrapnel sitting in your foxhole.

If you have any info I'd love to read it. Google's spat back some results but mostly sellers on eBay but no historical facts about it.

thought you might like to see it anyway. Thanks for reading.

 

[Retired Member southey]

No idea as to the history, but thats a pretty cool set matey!

 

[John Fenna]

If you call a stove collector "stovey" do you call a cookset collector "potty"?
Nice little set that!

 

[Toddy]

M.M.T. was (is?) a French manufacturer, since before WW1, iirc.
They made all sorts of things, like headlamp settings and so on, but they were quickly changed over to wartime production when needed.

That kind of engraving on pots was pretty common in the 60's and 70's on kit among scouts.

Handy looking little set

cheers,
M

 

[decorum]

I at first thought Gizele was the owner's name however, Giselle is a girl's name which makes me wonder if the illiterate owner was engraving his wife or girlfriend's name into his kit. Sounds like a nice little passtime to me while dodging shrapnel sitting in your foxhole.

I did a bit of the old Google-Fu and it seems like there's a few accepted ways of spelling the name ~ including using a J in place of the G.

thought you might like to see it anyway.

I would ~ but, once again I've been hit by the curse of photobucket and I can only see pics 1,2 and 5.

Frow what I can see in pic 2 ...
It looks like a heart/apple/fruit shape in the center with leafed branches sprouting from it.
Top right has a Croix de Lorraine.
Top left is the name Gizele.
Underneath and central, is what appears to be a set of wings.

Can you confirm or correct the above observations?

I'm going to presume that pic 3 and or 4 shows the details




I really dislike some websites and the one which usually tops that list is PBucket

 

[sasquatch]

That's a cool little cookset there, if it wasn't a scout perhaps it's trench art? I'd love to go to some of these car boot sales you go to...

 

[Ahjno]

C'est une gamelle armee.

I've seen it used in France when I was a kid and seen it for sale several times in 'antique' stores / boot sales.

gamelle is the same word in dutch (gammel) for mess tins.

http://cgi.ebay.fr/GAMELLE-ARMEE-M-M-T-1945-TOURNUS-/350456684885
http://lekikou.info/pages/catalog.html

 

[Biker]

Can you confirm or correct the above observations?

I'm going to presume that pic 3 and or 4 shows the details

Yeah that's pretty much what the engraving is of, the other photos are just shwoing the pots out of thier cluster and the last one showing the base maker's stamp

That's a cool little cookset there, if it wasn't a scout perhaps it's trench art? I'd love to go to some of these car boot sales you go to...

My brother was saying the exact same thing on Sunday, we get a different flavour of bootfairs over here - different country, different tut.

C'est une gamelle armee.

I've seen it used in France when I was a kid and seen it for sale several times in 'antique' stores / boot sales.

gamelle is the same word in dutch (gammel) for mess tins.

Thanks Ahjno, Those are both the links I found when I ran a googly image search I certainly didn't pay €30 for my set. That set on eBay loked sweet too, looks like it has an even laregr poton the base part.

Toddy thanks for the reply. So it could be more common than just a bored soldier doing the engraving. The scout angle would add up because in the same box that I dug this out of was a Boy Scouts of France leather belt with big brass buckle. I was almost tempted to buy that to pass on to someone here in the gift it on thread, but there's only so much tut you can buy and store and risk it not being good enough in the gift it on thread. So you end up stuck with it.

Anyway thanks for the feedback people. I'll let you know how it works when I use it in anger sometime.

 

[decorum]

Yeah that's pretty much what the engraving is of, the other photos are just shwoing the pots out of thier cluster and the last one showing the base maker's stamp

I'm wondering about the symbolism of the etching ~ possibly more so due to the origin of the name Gizele (hostage/pledge). The date stamp would appear to mark it more at a 'This is what I was' rather than 'This is what I am' ~ but it could be a bit of both. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar .