doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Help identifying Suhl shotgun

I found this 16 Ga side by side external hammers horn trigger guard. Photos of barrel flats
One barrel has Suhl engraved. Faint mark of retailer??[img]https://postimg.cc/user/borsdok[/img]

It carries post-April 1 1893 proof marks



Can you decipher the mark indicated?



Try to chalk the retailer name on the barrel

CA Franck ?? Is engraved on one barrel; Suhl more clearly on the other.

The mark on each barrel you ask about is faint but could be JC (initials)

Darryl

If you zoom in i think it looks like JC in a circle.

D

C.A. Franck was likely the retailer rather than maker. Unfortunately not on this list
https://germanhuntingguns.com/about-the-makers/gun-makers-dealers-p-t/
JC could be Joseph Cap of Liege who provided barrels to other makers.

Raimey should be helpful when he sees this.

Might you pleasure us w/ a foto of the water-table??

Um, Carl A. Franck of Hamburg typically doesn't pair w/ Suhl?? His concern, »Waffen und Stahlwaren« was located @ Steindamm 60 and in 1933 celebrated 50 years in Business but there was some founding in 1908? There must have been some reorganization in 1908 and the founding date was 1883? This lovely Lefaucheux Platform per the locking lever under the forend and said platform was a staple up to say 1900 and is all German, with Belgian sourced rough bored tubes, and was probably rolled off the work-bench 10 years after the later founding date.

I am not at all familiar w/ Büchsenmacher Franck but there were a couple other contemporaries in Magdeburg, namely Herman Franck and his successor.

Now to the Rough Bored Belgian Tubes: German did not convert Steel Bar Stock to tubes, they left that process up to the talented Belgian mechanics in Liège and that is why there were so many steel makers filing for Patent Protection in Belgium and allowing their steel recipes to be used in Belgium.

Dietrich Apel in our many years of friendship, always told me that the stamp of a »K« in a jagged circled was the mark of esteemed German barrel maker Kelber, and there were 3 of them & I think they were heavily pressed into service in the mid to late 1890s? In recent years, along comes Axel E. and he gives, with a little Black Magic & Stroke of the Magic Wand, that much like our Cockle-Burr Plant, Germany too has a similar plant, and maybe the same, that has fruit/offspring/seed with »little hooked thorns«, just like our Cockle-Burr and Beggar Lice, that very quickly & easily attaches to the coat of passerby animals and clothing of humans; all of which transport the seed to a new growing area. Axel E gives that since the K is in a „Ratchet“, or jagged circle, it is a symbol for the Klette seed & if you truncate the »e« off the end, then it reads „Klett“ and represents the talented Klett family of tubemakers, specifically Heinrich Klett. Now too the Klett family was somehow associated w/ the »Acorn« and a similar tale evolves; i.e. Acorn Folk are the Kletts. Anyway, if ifs and butts were candy & nuts, well all have a Merry Christmas w/ 2 choices of Kelber & Kletts.

Hochachtungsvoll,

Raimey
rse

What might be the tubeset length?


Hochachtungsvoll,

Raimey
rse

With the stamp of »Suhl« atop a tube, undoubtedly the gun of which you are a custodian is a Suhl made offering. Now there were several „K“ barrel mechanics in Suhl & Zella-Mehlic like Kelber, Keller, Keliermann and @ least 4 Kletts, but for the time period Heinrich Christoph Klett @ Hollandsmühle 2 in the 1920s, Suhl holds the highest probability, if you subscribe to the Klett Cockle-Burr Tale, with F.A. Klett at a close 2nd. Heinrich Christoph Klett(& Sohn) just may have been founded when the U.S. of A. was founded in 1776 with a bona fide founding date of Oktober 27th, 1807. I think »Sohn« was added in 1820, or thereabouts, and was a long, long line of distinguished tube mechanics.


Hochachtungsvoll,

Raimey
rse

Hochachtungsvoll,

Raimey
rse