As for the styles involved.  The 1894 finial was probably purchased out of a catalogue--the only important factors were cost and for theological reasons, the fact that it did not employ a cross (TOO Catholic).  We KNOW we got that one correct because we had the old, but damaged, parts to copy.

The one we just put on was much harder to get "right." We had a picture but no old parts.  The height and so on were pretty easy to get right, but the rooster (vaerhane in Norwegian) was a problem because of perspective problems in the picture.  We used high-definitions scans.  We actually found a sketch of the finial during the reconstruction of the steeple but it wasn't very detailed.  We got a scholar from Norway named  Jens C. Eldal, a church historian that has used Valley Grove's 1894 church in his studies, to weigh in with his opinions.  In the end, we had a retired art professor from St. Olaf, the college Valley Grove helped found, draw us a rooster.  I converted his drawing into a vector file using Illustrator, and after one more debate, we scaled it up to what we think was full size and gave it to the metal-benders.

"Remember the I35W bridge--who needs terrorists when there are Republicans"