It appears that there was an interesting relationship between France and Belgium when it comes to guns. Even though there was a very active gun industry in France, a number of French gun shops had guns made for them in Belgium. Some people think "French" if they see a French address and city on the barrels. The proofmarks often show the gun to be Belgian in origin. Seems especially true of guns sold by various Paris dealers.

1926 . . . that's only 4 years after it was stated in the V-C catalog that the marks "Helicobloc" and "Vercar" were the exclusive property of Verney-Carron.

Re the "Helice" system, for which "Helicobloc" was one of the trademarks, I received the following information in a 2002 letter from Claude Verney-Carron:

"Helice was the name of the locking system patented by my great-grandfather Jean Verney-Carron at the beginning of the twentieth century. When the patent expired and fell in the public field a lot of gun-makers from Saint-Etienne adopted the system for their own use. That's why you can find a lot of brands derived from the word Helice. Verney-Carron used the following ones: Helice Grip, Helice 33, Helistop, Helicobloc, Heliduplex."

That same 1922 V-C catalog carries one of the most interesting shotgun ads I've ever seen. There's a full page photo of Captain Rene Fonck, WWI's surviving ace of aces (75 kills) on which he's inscribed: "I am very pleased with your Verney-Carron Helice Grip shotgun. The birds fall like Krauts!" Underneath the photo, V-C refers to Fonck as a "famous hunter of men with his machinegun". That's even better than the Fausti sisters!

Last edited by L. Brown; 05/13/13 08:22 AM.