First, "Record" was not a trademark of Franz Jaeger, but of Paul Scholberg, Liege. The relations between F.Jaeger and Paul Scholberg are rather entangled. The key man here seems to be a Carl Bittiner.The Jaeger-Simson action, patented by Jaeger 1904, DRP 176578, was not only made by Franz Jaeger himself and , under Jaeger licence, by Simson, but the same action was also made and exported by Paul Scholberg, Rue Morinval 24, Liege, Belgium, without ever being sued or objected by Franz Jaeger. No licence arrangement is known. This is what I found out from various sources: When Franz Jaeger worked in the USA from 1898 - 1902, his business adress was "The Gun Improvement Company, Bittiner & Jaeger, Broadway 234-235, New York". The Bittiner of B&J was Carl Bittiner who settled in Liege after their American adventure. In 1907 Bittiner's Liege adress is also listed at rue Morinval 24, same as Paul Scholberg! In 1907 Bittiner even patented an improvement of this action, DRP 201505, the rear of the barrel lumps going into recesses in the action bar. So the entire idea of the "Simson-Jaeger" action may have been a "joint venture" of Franz Jaeger and Carl Bittiner, with an agreement that both patent it in germany and Belgium respectively. In 1910 Jaeger again patented a similar arrangement with sidplates to the same effect, DRP 229531. So who really invented what of the Jaeger-Simson-Bittiner-Scholberg action remains a mystery, probably unsolvable now. Because of this hodgepodge of patents Franz Jäger did not bother to defend his own at the time of WW1. At least the 1910 Jaeger patent expired in 1930, so from then on it was in the public domain. Several Zella-Mehlis makers made guns for the trade, copiing this action.
