On 12 September 1859, a Norwegian military commission recommend contracting with Eugène Lefaucheux to acquire some of his model 1854 pinfire revolvers to begin updating their service handguns. In October 1859 they ordered 800 revolvers and 120,000 pinfire cartridges for the Norwegian Navy with a delivery date of summer 1860.

There are various sources that claim differing serial number ranges of this first order, but The Lefaucheux Family Archives has matched up original purchase orders and invoices to determine that they are around the LF14597 – LF15936 range. Some of this is detailed in the excellent book on the subject, La Production des Modeles d’Eugène Lefaucheux by Guillaume Van Mastrigt.

Norwegian Model 59

This first order of revolvers followed the below design as shown in this example from the Norwegian Armed Forces Museum where they have it labeled as an example of the Norwegian Navy Model 1859. It is thought that there are no special markings that specifically indicate which guns Lefaucheux made specifically went to fulfill this first order.