doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com British classic SxS's and their serial numbers

I was just asked a question about the date of an EM Riley based on its serial number. I realize I've been equating the serial number of a Riley with the date of manufacture. (see the EM Riley line)

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbt...6538#Post436538

From the William Evans line, however, at least some British manufacturers numbered their guns when they were ordered....subsequent manufacture and delivery could take as long as three years.

Did this practice hold true for other classic British SxS's? i.e. The serial number reflects the date of the order not the date of manufacture, completion or delivery?

It must have been up to the maker as to how he kept his books. Serial number were not even required on guns at that time. What you describe is one maker keeping an order book and another a delivery book. Most kept a delivery book in part to keeping out track of payments to out sourced workers.

I think it depended on the situation. Some British makers allow buyers who purchase a single gun to reserve a consecutive number for a subsequent order to match the first, sometimes placed years later.

In British gun making, the two different books were called either the Ledger or the Cash book.

The Ledger was the book that held guns serial numbers, repair or refurbish work, and other pertinent information pertaining to the gun. The cash book is the book that kept track of outgoing payments to out workers, especially engravers and blackers.
Unfortunately, very few gun making firms have intact cash books. The cash books are interesting in that they can dispell popular myths and rumors....for example....the Sumners exclusively engraved all Boss guns...the Boss cash books have numerous entries of money going out to Thomas Sanders (gun engraver) in Soho.

I can only write with a degree of knowledge on two gunmakers.

Frederick Beesley had a gun ledger in which his guns were added at the time they were begun in his workshops or bought in to stock, if supplied by another. The gun details were recorded on the left hand page and a serial number allocated at that time. On the right hand page the date of sale, name of first owner and retail price were recorded. We know he also kept a day book, a cartridge register and suspect he had a separate ledger for pistols. With the exception of the gun ledger, the others were in all likelihood destroyed by the bomb that landed on the 7 Bury Street premises in 1940, after Beesley had been bought by Grant & Lang.

The other ledgers I have viewed in some detail are Purdey's for the 1870s-1890s, where the serial number was allocated against the gun at the time of order, often without any date. I found it better to more accurately date the guns from the separate barrel regulating books, which recorded the date on which the nearly finished gun was tested on the range.

Tim

Boss (and other makers) had ledgers for the shop and for the factory. Shop ledgers tend to have less info. Check out the order/delivery times on this gun.

Left is from the factory book, right is from the shop book.

OWD

How about that, a two barrel set finished in 4 months....

I thought all A&F guns were imported, did A&F keep a record of who actually made the gun?

William Evans ledger book is very clear. As Wm Evans said In their e-mail. Orders were taken. Once an order was sent to the factory it was "serial numbered." It could then be up to three years before it arrived back at the store for delivery. Here is the ledger book for my Wife's William Evans (subject of a separate conversation). And that would seem to make sense. Most of these firms were selling hand-made high-end guns, not mass market guns. A formal order entered in a order book would seem logical before any work on a gun began.

If I connect an EM Riley SN with a date in the future, I'll emphasize that my estimate is the date it was numbered....not finished.

But there's a corollary to this - when were the names/addresses of the gun maker added to the gun ribs? Why is this important? There are no EM Riley records extant. However he changed shop address 6 times counting the opening of the Paris shop. The address on the rib changed. So I've been dating serial numbers by rib-addresses.

Were Serial numbers added when the gun was ordered, and the ribs added just before the gun was sold? Or was it all a package? I may write my William Evans contact to ask his opinion.

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Example of an EM Riley serial number and why I'm asking:

15270 - (February 1868?) (first mention of Paris address; but with non-rebounding hammers) !!!!!!! First serial numbered Riley with the Paris address !!!!!!!!!!!

Name: E.M.Reilly and Company Oxford Street London & Rue Scribe Paris.

Descriptions: .577 calibre double barrel hammer breech loading underlever black powder proof African dangerous big game rifle.circa 1870 #15270. non rebounding back action locks,Jones patent rotary u/lever,26"

Comment: Note that these are non-rebounding hammers; Rebounding hammers were patented by Stanton in 1867; Reilly was quick to get the latest advances into his shop. So....was this gun numbered after the opening of Rue Scribe in Feb 1868. But before he began putting on rebounding hammers. Or could be it was ordered and serial numbered that way, and rebounding hammers came out after the order? Or that it was ordered/serial numbered before Stanton's patent and the address on the rib was added in February 1868 as a final touch?

http://www.gunstar.co.uk/reilly-e-m-co-double-barrel-hammer-rifle-rifles/rifles/584595

"Were Serial numbers added when the gun was ordered, and the ribs added just before the gun was sold? Or was it all a package?"

Argo, given that these gunmakers were likely to have several guns in build at any one time, logic would dictate that each already had a serial number allocated, if for no other reason than to keep all the parts for each particular gun as one 'package' as it went through the workshop.

I doubt that ribs were added just before the gun was sold, since barrels were made up and near complete prior to finishing. So the barrels were sent, perhaps in small batches of two or three, to the engraver for the name and address to be put on each rib. This would assume the action and other ironwork was engraved separately; perhaps some guns were engraved once complete and still in the white.

Some Beesley guns were built up pre WW I and not sold until the 1930s. Others were built and sold within several months, more particularly in the late 1800s.

Tim

Thanks, I was looking for too much clarity I guess. This is what got me thinking - Barrels proofed pre-1896 appearing a gun with a serial number from 1901 or thereabouts:

Post on the Reilly line from Toby Barclay:

"Argo44, I sold 35079 a few years back but checked my listing and the address was 277 Oxford Street. However the proof marks showed the gun was probably PROOFED pre-1896 so maybe made for stock and then finished and numbered accordingly." (my note: Reilly's shop at 277 Oxford Street remained open until about 1903; 35413 was the first Reilly I found with the address which succeeded 277).

And my reply:

Thanks Toby - .... It's interesting that the barrels were proofed pre-1896; Per the serial number you'd think it should have been numbered/finished about 1901-02 or so, depending on how many guns Reilly was selling (per a later post below, it looks as if he were selling about 130 per year from 1898-1903). If Reilly stockpiled barrels and actions, maybe that was how they were able to respond to orders with alacrity.