This book is an excellent source examining the company of Jean Samuel Pauly and his successors. It dives into the earliest documents and patents surrounding this revolutionary improvement in firearms design.
It is, by far, the most detailed contemporary look at these inventions and does a great job piecing together the information that was available to the author and updating many unfounded sources published in the past.
James Erskine, a gunmaker and inventor from Newton Stewart, Scotland had a prolific career inventing and patenting many improvements to guns and cartridge loading machines. His patented cartridge filler was universally accepted and used by all of the great British gunmakers of the day!
Erskine was born on September 12, 1812, in Penninghame, Wigtownshire, Scotland, the son of Mary Watson and Thomas Erskine. He married Elizabeth Sinclair on December 4, 1854, in his hometown. They had eight children over 21 years. He died on November 20, 1891, in Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire, Scotland, having lived a long life of 79 years.
During most of those 79 years Erskine was active learning and then working in the gun trade. The IGC Historical Database indicates that Erskine began his apprenticeship at 14 years old, working as a gun finisher for Williams & Powell, or their predecessor, Edward Patrick in Liverpool.
Sometime after 1841 and before the 1851 Scotland Census, Erskine moved to Newton Stewart and began working for himself as a gun maker.
He displayed two guns at the 1851 Great Exhibition and was awarded a bronze metal.
On July 20, 1859 he delivered the following provisional specification to the British patent office for an update to the Lefaucheux-style pinfire shotgun:
Description des Machines et Procédés spécifiés dans les Description des machines et procédés spécifiés dans les brevets d’invention, de perfectionnement et d’importation, dont la durée est expirée was the official printed record of the patents granted in France that were issued under the 1791 patent laws. These patents were not printed until after their expiration date of either 5, 10 or 15 years from when they were issued.
From 1791 until 1844 it was incredibly expensive to get a patent issued. The patent tax for 5 years was 300 francs, for 10 years it was 800 francs and for 15 years it was 1500 francs. At the time the average worker’s daily wage was 1.5 francs.
This feels like a very high quality book with thick linen rag pages, gilded pages and marbled inside covers. It even came with a bookmark!
But the content inside the document is what is really important. This is the official record of what the Conservatoire royal des arts et métiers (i.e. the patent office) believed the patent was about, looking back after it expired. This document is not always a full transcription of the patentee’s original document but rather detailed abstract that specifically describes the patent and heavily focuses on describing the drawings that accompanied it. It does quote specific sections sometimes though, Additionally, all of the drawing in the original patent may not always be reprinted here.
August G. Genez was a French Gunsmith that began working in the gun-making industry at 13 years old in France. He died on June 17, 1897 and over the course of his career he had many successful ventures as well as challenging tragedies.
This article will take a look at A. G. Genez, the gunsmith in New York, New York, and follow his 50-year career in the gun industry. We will also take a look at his successors of his gun shop, Vincent Bissig and John P. Dannefelser.
When August Genez was 21 years old he immigrated to the United States from a port in Le Havre, France on a ship named Charles Thompson and arrived in New York, New York on April 10, 1854. The ship log of his emigration record states he was from Germany but his naturalization record, son’s wedding record, various ads of his, son’s various census records all state his birthplace was France.
The Genez name first shows up in the 1856/1857 issue of Trow’s New York City Directory where Genez August is listed as a gunsmith at 221 William. The same year the Wilson’s business directory of New-York City list him under the Gunsmiths section with his business at 221 William.
L’Ecole du chasseur is an early book with reviews and information on birding, fishing, and hunting. They devote around 60 pages to print an extract of Henri Roux’s publication, Fusils De Chasse, Et Principalement Des Fusils a Pistons De L’invention Pauly, Avec Quelques Observations Sur La Fabrication Des Armes a Feu, Sur La Chasse, Sur La Poudre Et Ses Effets, a book all about the benefits of the new Pauly rifle and pistol, a system which Henri Roux owned the patents and company for.
Roux also created a detailed drawing which is referenced in both of these books throughout the text.
As a reminder, The Ironmonger & Metal Trades Advertiser was a British trade journal whose purpose (according to the publisher) was “concerned with helping people to make a living.” It is full of articles and exposition reviews and trade news and advertisements related to Ironmongers, which would be similar to modern-day hardware stores. I have began a series of publishing some of the guns and ammunition related features and ads from these historic journals that have largely been lost to history and are not published anywhere else.
This post will focus on the contents in the July-September 1901 Issues. The August 31, 1901 weekly issue had a nice two-page section on Guns and Ammunition. I will transcribe these articles here!
A Top-lever Hammerless-gun.
Following a well-established custom, Robert Hughes & Son, of the Universal Firearms Works, Moland Street, Birmingham, have issued an abridged list of their productions illustrating the leading lines in sporting-guns which they are this season offering to the trade. The list embraces some two dozen weapons, ranging from a simple farmers’ gun listing at 4l. 4s., up to the highest class of Anson & Deeley ejecting hammerless-gun retailing for about 50l. One of the best selling lines is the No. 4,4640, illustrated in fig. 1. This is a top-lever hammerless-gun, with cross-bolt action, and either plain damascus or steel barrels.
It is fitted with many modern improvements and is nicely finished in every detail. It retails at about 11l. Another popular line is the “Gentleman’s” gun, No. 4,456. This is a good-looking and well-finished weapon, with nicely-figured damascus barrels and figured stock, and it lists at 7l. to 8l. 10s.
The last issue in September of The Ironmonger and Metal Trades Advertiser was often the most important issue of the year. It was the biggest and contained the most ads. This issue each year also had this fancy colored cover.
This September 26, 1896 issue of The Ironmonger lists Arms and Ammunition trade marks, brands or special names for the following companies:
Lane Bros., Ammunition for Air Guns
Hay, Merricks & Co., Limited, Gunpowder
F. Joyce & Co. Ltd., Manufacturers of Sporting Ammunition; Percussion Caps, Cartridges and Gun Wads
Eley Bros., Lim., Sporting, Military, and Revolver Cartridges, Percussion Caps and Gunwads
G. Kynoch & Co. Limited, Sporting and Military Ammunition
The King’s Norton Metal Co., Limited, Rolled Metals, Ammunition for Small Arms, Quick Firing and other Guns
The Ironmonger & Metal Trades Advertiser was the first trade newspaper. It was first published as Morgan’s Monthly Circular & Metal Trades Advertiser on May 31, 1859 and soon changed its name to The Ironmonger & Metal Trades Advertiser.
It began as a monthly journal and by 1878 it was switched to being published weekly, every Saturday. They also published the yearly volumes capturing the 52 weekly issues in 2-4 large volumes per year. I recently acquired a set of these yearly volumes that cover the years of 1879 – 1903.
There is a wealth of information in these related to the hardware and metal trade across the United Kingdom. They had weekly stock performance, tabulated results on UK exports to the US, foreign news and intelligence, reviews of agricultural shows and other exhibitions, articles about guns and ammunition, listing of patents and trademarks applied for, information on liquidations and bankruptcies and advertisements; many many advertisements.
We have examined this cartridge previously in our exploration of the relationship of pinfire cartridges and The United States. You can read about it here:
The August, 31 1861 issue of The Scientific American reviewed this new cartridge and gun made by Casper D. Schubarth in detail. I found an original copy and transcribed it here to preserve for the future.
The story of Coirier à Clermont is a interweaved tale of partnerships and encounters that begins in 1848.
In 1848 a Frenchman named Francis Marquis founded a company that made carbines for cavalry. In French this is the term, harquebusier. He was known for making high quality guns and displayed some of his work at the Exposition Universelle of 1855 in Paris, the 1862 Great London Exposition and the 1867 Paris Universal Exposition.
Shortly after the London Exposition, La Chasse Illustrée, an illustrated journal dedicated to all things hunting, featured an article about some of the high grade guns presented at the exposition. They described Marquis’s gun as “remarkable” and “a real masterpiece.”
South American Pinfire Cartridges are pretty uncommon! Pinfire guns had a relatively significant use in South American countries such as Argentina and Uruguay as many were imported for many decades. The large 15mm pinfire guns were especially popular by farmers as a large side arm to protect from wild animals.
This is a high-end 15mm pistol that came out of Uruguay. It was made by the luxury gun manufacturer, P. Boissy somewhere around the late 1850s to 1860s. He manufactured his guns in Saint-Étienne, France and even won an award at the Exposition Universelle of 1855 in Paris for his “pistolets de luxe.”
Journal Des Armes Spéciales was an important French technical journal about arms and armament that was published monthly on the 25th of the month from 1834 – 1870. It was an offshoot of Journal Des Sicences Militaires which started in 1825 and ran through 1914.
In 1834, Journal Des Sicences Militaires ran this article introducing Journal Des Armes Spéciales. The article is amazingly intense, aggressive, rooted in French military pride and filled with the glories of warmongering.
Charles Millichamp of Presteign, Radnorshire, Wales was a watchmaker who owned a fishing tackle shop. Over a few decades he made significant use of advertising to inform people about his new endeavors. One of his earliest ads was for his business, County Sporting Tackle House, where he advertised his custom trout & grayling flies as well as all kinds of fishing tackle that he sold.
In 1888 Millichamp worked with William Maund who was a landowner that lives about 6 miles away in the village of Shobdon, Herefordshire, England to invent a new mechanical scarecrow in the form of a self-acting field clock gun. They patented this new invention on May 3, 1888. You can read more about the patent and see high quality images of my example of this gun in my earlier article.
Maund and Millichamp very quickly began getting press and reviews written about their invention in various publications. You will notice that sometimes the review mentions both inventors and other times it mentions only one or the other.
We talked before about John Hall and his patented automatic clock gun (linked below.) This article will explore another gun that draws heavily on the concept and design, likely because it was probably also made by John Hall. Make sure to watch the video of it in action at the very bottom!
The last article stopped around 1902, when John Hall patented his automatic clock gun and received reviews and media attention for it. However, John Hall did not stop making automatic clock-gun bird scarers then. John Hall & Son made them for at least another 50 years! In 1951 they were still listed under the Bird Scarers category in the Commercial Growers’ Directory & Buyer’s Guide.
The Journal Des Débats was an influential French newspaper that was published between 1789 and 1944. The following advertisements by Maison Lefaucheux were in various issues.
FUSILS à systéme et à percussion ordinaire.
MÉDAILLES aux Expositions de 1834 et 1839
The earliest one I have acquired so far was from the August 18, 1839 issue. It lists the address of House Lefaucheux as 10, rue de la Bourse, This is the address that Casimir Lefaucheux worked out of from 1834 – 1835 and then again from 1845 to 1850.
À PROPOS DE MOI
Bonjour, je m'appelle Aaron Newcomer. Je suis collectionneur et chercheur sur les systèmes d'armes à feu à chargement par la culasse du début du 19e siècle, avec un intérêt particulier pour les travaux de Jean Samuel Pauly et Casimir Lefaucheux. Je collectionne les cartouches et les documents liés à ces types d'armes à feu et je mène des recherches sur ces sujets, approfondissant ma compréhension et ma connaissance de ces armes historiques et leur place dans l'évolution de la technologie des armes à feu. Ma collection et mes recherches reflètent mon engagement à préserver et à comprendre l'histoire et les innovations techniques de ces systèmes d'armes à feu anciens.
Pour en savoir plus sur moi et où mes travaux ont été publiés.
