doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com Karl Ratzka Kriegern

I stumbled across this Bohemian firearms merchant but I can't say I have the name & location spelled correctly or that I know where in the world Kriegen(?) might be: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryry







Looks like Gebhard Helmuthhauser or someone at the firm Carl Gottlieb Hänel made the tubes.




If that is an encircled "RS" and for Robert Schlegelmilch of Meiningen, it would have been some of his last effort as a barrel knitter as I think the shop closed in 1924.


Mass of tubes


Passed thru the Weipert facility in 1925


Sort of a swan's neck??




Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Hi Raimey,
The area is located in the old Südetendeutsche area of the nowadays Czech Republic not far from the German border town where my wife comes from.
The plaque on the stock sugests to me it was an issued gun so maybe it is a foresters or gamekeepers tool.
Regards
Martin

Thanks Martin for the input. Any more thoughts on the Nimrodwerke medallion?
To what does the phrase on the stock translate??

I don't know if the badges below are connected.










Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Fine looking view of the bolt rifle NIMRODWERKE- great job of machining indeed, typical of both German and Austrian weapons mfg. prior to 1939-- Nicht Fur Kugel means- Not for Ball ammo- or- birdshot loads only (sorry, my Dell keyboard can't put the umlat over the u in the word Fur-- Krieg is the German word for War- and Kriegen is the plural of that word. I am just as curious as you seem to be about its true meaning as a barrel stamping as shown in your fotos- Auf Weidenschoen!

The gun is made in Bohemia and has Austrian proof marks which would make me guess that it was made before 1919. Someone adept with Austrian proofs could tell. But the barrels are German and were proofed in Germany. Somebody tell me how that works. A Wanderpreis is a traveling trophy or award that the winner doesn't get to keep. Hard to believe with a gun, though. If you ever see an Austrian gun marked "Jen Pro Broky," it means the same as "Nicht fuer Kugel" or "shot only" in Czech. Donauwoerth is a fur piece from Kriegern but then the gun is a wandering prize.

Danke! I tried to find a town on village named Kriegern in Germany but to no avail. Apparently it exists- strange perhaps how the German word for war- Krieg- appears in the gun making context- Krieghof in ULM-- etc..

Old German Kriegern (in Sudetenland) is present Czech Kryry.
With kind regards,
Jani

According to an old encyclopedia, Kriegern in 1890 was a small country town in then Austrian Bohemia, with 2900 inhabitants, all German speaking. In 1945 all German people were killed or driven out of Czechoslovakia. The gun was first proofed in either Suhl or Z-M, pehaps in the white. Later, in then Czechoslovakia, the German proofmarks were mostly removed,leaving the crown/S mark. In 1925 (ledger number) the gun was reproofed in Weipert/Vejprty, NPw stamp and small 2 inside Lion. Up to 1931 the Chechs continued to use the former Austrian proofmarks, merely substituting the imperial eagle by the Czech rampand lion.
Here we have the multiple use of a tradmark by different companies again: On one side Nimrod, after the great hunter of the Bible, was the trademark of the Suhl gunmakers Thieme& Schlegelmilch, known not only for their proprietary Nimrod line of cartridges, but also for Nimrod falling block rifles, the Nimrod breeching of break-open and, last but not lest, for the hand-detacheable Nimrod box- and sidelocks, perhaps the best lock designs ever for safety and trigger pull.
On the other hand we have the completely unrelated Nimrod Werke in Bergstetten. These started as the foremost maker of clay targets in Germany, soon adding the traps from hand throwers to hydraulic machines to the line. For many decades they held nearly a monopoly on clay equipment in Germany. Even later they expanded their line to all target shooter's supplies.
Apparently this gun was given by the Nimrod Werke as a "Wanderpreis" to a local trapshooting club in 1925. A Wanderpreis was indeed handed from one winner of the yearly event to the next, but if a person wins the "Wanderpreis" for the third time, it is permanently owned by that winner and a new Wanderpreis is given to the contests.

You simply cannot use a dictionary of the modern German language to explain German names, especially place-names! Such names often are more than 1000 years old and are altered, transcribed and so on from long-forgotten meanings. the same applies to English names. For instance, English Warwick is not related to some sort of military candle, but was developed from Anglo-Saxon "waering + wic", spelled "Waerincwicum" in 1001, meaning "marketplace by the weir(= river-dam, German Wehr)"