Basic gear from mid-twentieth-century France

[clercinlemousy]

sous la swim fin flottante Marin nice il est inscrit (attention ne pas marcher dessus) cette marque est apparue entre les années 1950-1960 une époque fort mouvementée pour louis de corlieu qui était en proçès avec des fabriquants de swim fin contrefaites , je dois justment vous revenir avec un historique de swim fins contrefaites dès l'année 1941

 

[clercinlemousy]

j'oubliais de vous dire, je viens de recevoir une paire de swim fins Flottante marin nice de couleur noire

 

[clercinlemousy]

si vous faite un clic sur l'image qui saffiche pour moi c'est Louis de Corlieu avec son premier prototype de swim fin , je reviendrais avec le journal d'origine fait dans les années 1920

 

[David Wilson]

bonjour du Québec, vous mentionnez rolant forjot serait-il frère avec maxine Forjot inventeur d,un fusil harpon! donc ces deux personnages et si il n'y a pas erreur ils auraient mis sur le marché la marque Marin Nice!

J'avais l'impression que Roland était le fils de Maxime Forjot. J'ai lu quelque part que Maxime, propriétaire de la marque "Douglas", s'était déménagé à Nice pour la santé de Roland. Ce qui est certain, c'est que Roland, meilleur homme d'affaires que Maxime, était le propriétaire de la marque "Marin" de la S.F.A.C.E.M. (Société de Fabrication d’Articles de Chasse d’Exploitation Sous-Marine) domiciliée à Nice.

 

[clercinlemousy]

vous avez raison David j'ai retrouvé l'article

 

[clercinlemousy]

je vais rassembler les infos que j'ai sur Maxime Forjot pour mieux revenir sur le sujet

 

[ofg-1]

You guys do know that a lot of us do not speak French, even though we may kiss that way.

 

[David Wilson]

You guys do know that a lot of us do not speak French, even though we may kiss that way.

Yes, I do, but a thread dedicated to the history of France's diving equipment manufacturers may lapse into the language of that country now and again. It so happens that @clercinlemousy is French-Canadian and may have some interesting insights to share as he has researched swimming fin development since the days of their modern inventor Louis de Corlieu.

For the non-Francophones amongst us, I'll just paraphrase what's been said so far. We are talking about Maxime Forjot, founder of the company which made Douglas spearguns. He had a son called Roland who founded a company whose brand was called "Marin" and was eventually subsumed into Scubapro. Who, when and how can be discovered by going back in the current thread and seeing what has been said in English about the two firms. If you click on clercinlemousy's avatar you'll see a picture of Louis de Corlieu wearing the fins he invented. He had big problems enforcing his patent on rivals who copied his invention without acknowledgement. For the record, Owen Churchill, who took de Corlieu's design to the USA and improved it, was one of the very few who acknowledged the Frenchman's contributions.

 

[Sam Miller III]

As I have posted several times knew Owen Potter Churchill and even visited him in his SoCal home. He was always generous with is experiences.

As I recall Owen's company paid De Corlieu a considerable amount of the use of his fin patent -- $250,000.00 US dollars comes to mind .

He also gave me a number of historical pictures, which at that time 40 or more years ago, were current pictures that have since been tossed or misplaced.

I do recall saving one which was the only picture of Owen and De Corlieu in Morocco, where Owen had traced him down after WW11 -- I do have that one but where ?

SAM

 

[David Wilson]

Thanks for additional information about Owen Churchill and Louis de Corlieu, Sam. Yves (@clercinlemousy) has emailed me some more information about de Corlieu that I may be able to post here if he grant me permission to do so. Stay tuned.

As for my own contributions to this thread, I may have an intriguing story to tell about our "mystery man" Charles Wilen, whose partnership with Alexandre Kramarenko led to the foundation of Nice's United Service Agency, who patented fins and snorkel-masks, and who now may be the subject of the image below.

More about him anon, but not today, when my task is to tell you about France's Kent Rubber Company, which made underwater swimming equipment as well as household products.