Yes its entirely possible NM either copied the design...not sure they had any molds though as both the Czech & U.S. versions run roughly the same time periods. NM also made a direct copy of the Czech Lady Face bookends. I do know that Harry Barth (Barth Art Glass & former manager of NM) made a copy of the tall standing horse originally designed by Mario Petrucci & Barth made them around 1944. Additionally Several New Martinsville animals molds were actually designed by private giftware distributors (Wiel Freeman, Ebeling & Reuss, and Marks and Rosenfeld) & molds made by NM, but ownership was maintained by the distributors. Example: Molds for the Tigers, Head Up Horse, Eagle & Nautilus figures production in late 1940 were owned by Wiel Freeman. The Starfish & Seahorse originally attributed to NM in early references have turned out to be Paden City production from Barth molds & Harry sold many of his animal molds to NM in 1952 so that caused the confusion as to original attribution. Ken