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Brace of travelers pistols

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kelleyjk

40 Cal.
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Finally got around to hosting some pics of my Dads family heirloom guns. .36 caliber smooth bore double barrel percussion pistols. He got them just after WWII from a man who said they were Irish travellers pistols or maybe English. Maker appears to be Stahlj or Stahl J ? I can only imagine fending off some highwaymen with these.

Any info appreciated.

8trvlrspistols.jpg


8trvlrspistolsview.jpg


8trvlrspistolproof.jpg


8trvlrspistolmaker.jpg
 
stahl is the german word for steel. j has no meaning in the steel industry, maybe just a owners initial?
 
I saw one of those type of guns at a gun auction in the summer. Yours look in better shape, though.
 
:hmm: wonder what it went for?

I cant really make out the writing on the bottom, there is some kind of crest doesnt match any English proof marks Ive seen kinda like a two part acorn or shield, well maybe somebody will spot this thread and offer a clue
 
Ken Clements said:
stahl is the german word for steel. j has no meaning in the steel industry, maybe just a owners initial?
I don't knowm if this will help or hinder, but I've called a few friends here in Germany.
"J" connected with "Stahl" does have a meaning (to my shame) It can mean "cold hammered" or " a type of steel with other mixture" (example carbon or other)depending on the time frame.
I cannot see the stamp marks well enough to help, is there a possibility to somehow get a better photo?
 
Ken Clements said:
Ken Clements said:
stahl is the german word for steel. j has no meaning in the steel industry, maybe just a owners initial?
I don't knowm if this will help or hinder, but I've called a few friends here in Germany.
"J" connected with "Stahl" does have a meaning (to my shame) It can mean "cold hammered" or " a type of steel with other mixture" (example carbon or other)depending on the time frame.
I cannot see the stamp marks well enough to help, is there a possibility to somehow get a better photo?

what does seem interesting are the stamps next to "StahlJ"....is there a possibility to somehow get these clearer? maybe laying a thin paper over the stamps and lightly with a pencil running over the paper to get the stamps to come out?
If I'm not seeing wrong and it is stamped 2 Gr....that could possibly be 2 grams(metric)=30 grains (powderload)
 
Just J said:
anyone able to recognize the proof marks or other markings ?

Yes, I recognise them.

These pistols are German and made AFTER 1891 - the crown over U was adopted in the 1891 System of proofing and in use until the beginning of WW2. The supplementary crown over the top is the single defintive proof stamp for pistols and revolvers and pocket pistols bewteen 1981 and 1939.

The '2g NGP m/??' means that these arms were designed to shoot 2 grams [31 grains] of 'Neues Gewehr Pulver [New-type rifle powder - usually type 71] - a fine grade of black powder.

The lettering underneath - a number 8? followed by gr and BG - is the weight of the bullet in grains - BG means blei geschoss - lead bullet, weighing 110grains - about a .42 calibre ball - near enough to 11mm. This was a common European handgun calibre.

The '26' is unknown but is probably a serial number stamp - it has no relationship to the proof stamps.

The style of lettering used in the 'STAHL' stamp is typical of the 1920-1939 era. The post letter 'J' has no significance that I know - if a German tells you differently then he has more knowledge than I do about the marking.

So these pistols are German, NOT English or Irish - indeed, there is absolutely nothng about them that is native to either country. In fact, they should not be called 'travellers pistols' as 'travellers' is a euphemism for gypsies. They might be called 'Travelling' pistols, of the style carried by a gentleman, but these are a pair of quite nice replications of such weapons and are most definitely not 'antiques' as understood by the term here in Europe.

tac
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund
 
Thanks thats excellent information but brings up even more questions.

Wonder why anyone would build and bother to proof test and sell muzzleloaders like this when pocket cartridge revolvers were readily available?

Were these replicas marketed to "hobby" shooters, I mean people like us with our Thompson Center Hawken replica rifles?
 
Just J said:
Thanks thats excellent information but brings up even more questions.

Wonder why anyone would build and bother to proof test and sell muzzleloaders like this when pocket cartridge revolvers were readily available?

Were these replicas marketed to "hobby" shooters, I mean people like us with our Thompson Center Hawken replica rifles?

As I noted in my post, from the proof marks et al these pistols were made between 1891 and 1939 - I'm betting that there was no such thing as a 'hobby shooter' [of the kind that you describe] in Germany between 1914 and 1939 - they had other things on their minds at that time - WW1 was over, but the Weimar Republic and near-civil war was about to get afire, followed closely by the Great Depression and then the rise of Hitler's nazi Germany and preparation for WW2.

They MAY have been made for another market away from Europe, but where that might have been is outside my knowledge. They ARE a rather esoteric interest item, of that there is no doubt.

My betting is that they were made between 1891 and 1910 or thereabouts - just a feeling - but for whom, I really have no idea.

BTW - I have been playing with the images, and have decided that the ball weight is actually 6gr - 93gr. This is more in keeping with a 9.3 - 10mm ball without a patch - still acceptable as a typical European calibre.

tac
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund
 
A suggestion that might explain why a 70 year old pistol design might have been made following WW I is the Germans arms industry was severely limited as to what kind of weapons they could make.

The Ortgie (Deutsche Werke A.G.) semi-auto pistol was just about the only 'modern' gun they could build. Perhaps this double barreled black powder gun was a lower cost alternative to the Ortgie?
 
Zonie said:
A suggestion that might explain why a 70 year old pistol design might have been made following WW I is the Germans arms industry was severely limited as to what kind of weapons they could make.

The Ortgie (Deutsche Werke A.G.) semi-auto pistol was just about the only 'modern' gun they could build. Perhaps this double barreled black powder gun was a lower cost alternative to the Ortgie?

Zonie - I bow to your greater knowledge of this subject, but the Versailles Treaty restrictions were placed on the production of weapons of war, not civilian firearms. Many of the great pistol designs came out of the 1920's - the Walther PP and PPK, and others. My own Walther Model 1 rifle came from 1926.

I'm at a loss to explain these strange pistols away - as I can see no real place for them in German society. Perhaps a native might be able to shed more light on them than I can.

Meanwhile, absent better images and measurements, I've contributed all I can offer to this thread.

tac
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund
Proud Member of Clark Rifles Inc, Brush Prairie WA
 
What ever the story behind them, I wish someone would make modern replicas of them. I see these kind of pistols all the time on auction sites and they have always intrigued me. Ones in shootable shape go for more than I want to pay.

Don
 
Yeah I never wanted to tote around a double barreled .50 or Howah or Howdah or do-dah whatever but these little guys would carry real nice and easy, we even put caps on them as kids and shot paper balls out of them in the workshop!

I asked the question about "recreational hobby type shooters" buying old muzzleloaders because I dont understand why anyone would carry these as serious sidearms against an opponent weilding a Borchardt or even a Webly or something in any kind of a gun fight. Back in those days antiques werent really cherished so much as discarded so a replica market so to speak wouldnt make much sense!

In any case these have been shot enough to have pitting around the snail area and the bores are dark and pitted, looks like someone tried to clean them up but not since they were given to my father.

All the parts appear to be one off, handmade sort deals the file marks are still present in some areas, the barrels are actually tapered and those stamps well theyre obviously hand jobs :redface: maybe the builder was himself, a hobbiest of sorts.
 
tacrifle came from 1926. I'm at a loss to explain these strange pistols away - as I can see no real place for them in German society. Perhaps a native might be able to shed more light on them than I can. [/quote said:
I can try using a tripod ot get a cleaner image but even in person I cant make them out better than in these pics cropped from larger images.

Interesting story my uncle has lived most of his adult life in Germany, hes an avid shooter and collects some. When he saw these he didnt even recognize them as being German! So maybe they werent made for Germans at all maybe they were sold to the Irish country gentlemen market to hang on the wall!

Again thanks for the info tac Im pointed in that direction now
 
if you can send one or two picts privat I can ask around here in Germany....no promises, I can only ask
 
Just J said:
Yeah I never wanted to tote around a double barreled .50 or Howah or Howdah or do-dah whatever but these little guys would carry real nice and easy, we even put caps on them as kids and shot paper balls out of them in the workshop!

I asked the question about "recreational hobby type shooters" buying old muzzleloaders because I dont understand why anyone would carry these as serious sidearms against an opponent weilding a Borchardt or even a Webly or something in any kind of a gun fight. Back in those days antiques werent really cherished so much as discarded so a replica market so to speak wouldnt make much sense!

In any case these have been shot enough to have pitting around the snail area and the bores are dark and pitted, looks like someone tried to clean them up but not since they were given to my father.

All the parts appear to be one off, handmade sort deals the file marks are still present in some areas, the barrels are actually tapered and those stamps well theyre obviously hand jobs :redface: maybe the builder was himself, a hobbiest of sorts.

Sir - you have pretty much gone off track here. The manufacture of firearms in Germany, previously a collection of independent states, has been strictly regulated since at least 30 April 1867, with the promulgation of the first Prussian Proofhouse in Solingen by royal decree. At that time, all the various states that were eventually make up the unified German had their own proof-houses and gunmakers' guilds. As such, the 'hobbyist' gunsmith is a totally alien concept to the German way of thinking. After the successful unification of Germany by Bismarck in 1871, and the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm I, the Reichstag of the United Germany later voted the final Proof Act Act into law on 19 May 1891, and the new system came into full use on 1 April 1893.

There were, and still are, no 'hobbyist' gun-makers of the kind that you describe in Germany then, or now. The likes of our own Mike Brookes are an American thing. Only a registered gunmaker with a guild certificate and at least a seven-year technical and guild apprenticeship behind him can legally make a gun in Germany. The awesome titles carried by these gentlemen should give you an idea - Der Amptliches Buchsenmachermeister - Official Master Gun-maker.

It IS a possiblity that these two pistols were made by an apprentice - the somewhat crude handiwork would support this theory. They lack the fine fit and finish usually associated with a completed German firearm of the time, and are, in any case, highly anachronistic in style and type - another pointer to them being guild test pieces or apprentice work.

Hand-applied stamps ARE hand applied - by the inspectors at the appropriate proof house, using a stamp and a hammer - even today. I cannot see the proof house stamps on these pistols, but I'm pretty sure that they are there somewhere - they SHOULD be in full view, as are the other stamps. I would emphasize that the font used the make the stamp 'STAHLJ' is VERY modern in style, on review possibly 1920's at the earliest.

BTW, to counterfeit such markings is a very serious crime in Germany - the crown over U - Untersuchung [inspection] is the royal crown, and can only be applied by an official of the Proof House by deputised royal decree - now federal decree. As such, counterfeiting a proof mark was then and still is on a par with coin counterfeiting. I'm not saying that it never happened, but Germany had no empire of people desperate for firearms, like the British did, to cater for a black-market of fakes and/or cheap guns.

As for somebody - 'highwayman'? - wielding a Borchardt or a Webley, IMO both scenarios are pretty much off the wall - the last highwayman in the UK, James Snooks, was hanged in May 1801. A German highwayman is even less likely, as the price of the Borchardt, when it was produced, was about two year's wages for the average German working man. With many well-founded gun-makers, the likelihod of any European apart from somebody from UK using a Webley is passing rare.

tac, with apologies for coming back.
 
Ok. I can say this; from an actual gun fight I was involved in in 1993, it wasnt with a highwayman in the classic sense!

And since these arent hunting pieces or target pistols I had to presume they were:

a. intended for gun fighting / personal protection

b. sold as a recreational ie. hobby firearm

c. I reckon some would be gunsmith apprentice couldve made them as a high school science fair project but now thats even more "off the wall" I think :hmm:

anyway I said thanks, youre a pretty sensitve guy aint ya? I used the word highwaymen loosely as the term car jackers would not be period correct...
 
Ken Clements said:
if you can send one or two picts privat I can ask around here in Germany....no promises, I can only ask

you'll have to forgive my noobness on this board I cant seem to figure out how to send you a .jpg

these images are linked from my Imageshack account, if you right click they should "save picture as" or maybe if you send me PT with your email I can attach

thanks Ken I reckon PT is like PM on other boards?
 
Just J said:
c. I reckon some would be gunsmith apprentice couldve made them as a high school science fair project but now thats even more "off the wall" I think :hmm:

Sir - I'm sorry that my style is not to your liking, but I'm trying hard to put as much information as I can to you in a way that makes some sense to you.

Here in Europe things are MUCH different to the way things are done in the USA. It IS a different culture entirely where guns are concerned, at least.

Here is what a person has to undergo to call himself a gunsmith here in Europe.

In Germany, UK, Spain, Italy, Finland and Austria, if you are clever enough, handy enough and practical enough, you might try to become an apprentice gunsmith at age 18 at tech school. There you might attract the attention of one of the many gunmaking companies who will take you on as an apprentice.

You just might be qualified to call yourself a gunsmith by the time you are aproaching your 25th birthday. Unlike the USA, where you can do a six-month postal course and call yourself a gunsmith, that does not happen in Europe.

At all stages of their training, apprentices are required to undertake practical tests of their growing skills by written and practical demonstration. My friend Manfred Effmert, a master gunmaker in NordRhein-Westphalen, told me that his first test piece, after spending three weeks learning how to use a file, was to make a brass sphere out of a cube, and an aluminum cube out of a sphere - all by hand.

His 'Meisterstuck' - his guild qualifying piece -was a completely-finished 9.3x74R double rifle. He is a Master Gunmaker, and as such, may take apprentices of his own.

Such APPRENTICE test pieces that are sold on - clearly identified as such - are not uncommon in Germany.

tac
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund
 
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