doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Capt. Paul A. Curtis -- Arthur P. Curtis

Am I missing something? It appears to me that Mr. Tyson is equating these two gentlemen as the same person in his article on the Marlin Model 90 "Skeetking" in the current issue of The Double Gun Journal? Also adding an s to the name --Curtiss! Aruther P. Curtis had Patent No. 1,239,899 for the "Purdey-like" push-botton forearm used on some Hunter Arms Co. L.C. Smith doubles and Patent No. 1,348,545 for the second-style bolting on Ithaca Flues-Model single-barrel trap guns. Capt. Paul A. Curtis, Jr. was a WW-I vet and the shooting editor of Field & Stream, as well as the author of Sporting Firearms of Today in Use, 1922, and Guns and Gunning, 1934.

Yes, Mr. Tyson seems to be a bit confused. Captain Paul Curtis was no one's gun designer as far as I know. Arthur P. Curtis was a superior gun designer, was employed by several gun companies in high positions, wrote very technical articles in American Rifleman and other publications. He designed and built try guns on Parker, Smith, Lefever, and other actions. He did not build the Parker Brothers factory try guns, but those guns used features of Curtis' earlier designs.

A.P. Curtis also was the superintendent of the Ithaca Gun Co. for a number of years and built Ithaca's try guns.(about 10 SBT and 3 Doubles. I have not seen a any of the doubles, only their tracks in the old shop journals) Also Curtis built at least one for the Lefever Arms Co.(Bill, I think you have seen that gun)

Just snooping around a bit more. On the title page of his book Sporting Firearms of Today In Use it says "by Paul A. Curtis, Jr., shooting editor of Field and Stream, Captain (ret) U.S.A., A.E.F."

In the article on his suicide in the New York Times for Sunday, November 21, 1943, it says --

Paul A. Curtis, an American gunnery expert who recently resigned as a captain in the British Army, shot and killed himself at 12:31 P.M. yesterday in the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Gahagan at 277 Park Avenue.

Walt is correct. I neglected to mention that Arthur P. Curtis also built try guns for Ithaca, all of what I have seen have been singles. Yes, I have seen the Lefever try gun built by Arthur P. Curtis that was pictured in the Elliott book. A local collector owned an Ithaca Curtis try gun, but it has slipped away. I have also seen the only Curtis Parker try gun known. An L.C. Smith Curtis try gun is pictured in Eaton, but some say it is actually a Parker since the picture is not clear. It appears to be a sidelock, but other features of the picture suggest it is the Parker #158,664 mentioned in TPS. All I know is that Captain Paul A. Curtis was not a gun designer.

Arthur Curtis worked for several of the major American gun manufacturers, starting in the 1890's and continuing at least into the 1930's. He did an excellent two part article in "The American Rifleman" in the 30's dealing with long shells in short chambers.