Nice label Ted....very nice and great history. Wonder what the Darne Saint-Etienne labels looked like?

If you'll take a look at the EM Reilly line, below, 12th page....you'll see a history of factory labels for EM Reilly from pre-1847 to 1898. You can find Reilly label reproductions on the internet but they will not necessarily be authentic for your gun if you have an EM Reilly since the labels changed over the years. It took some doing to compile those posts. I'd suspect one could do the same thing for other labels but again it is a little labor intensive.

I'll provide this example from the case of Obendorf's Reilly S/N 33950. The gun was likely serial numbered circa 1896. The case label (and I can's read all of it), has 315 New Oxford street. It does not appear to have the other branches 502 New Oxford Street or Rue Scribe. 315 New Oxford St. opened in 1859 and the labels usually had the 502 New Oxford St. main address. In 1868 the label added Rue Scribe and it appeared religiously on the labels for the next 14 years. In 1881 Oxford street was renumbered and 315 became 16 and 502 became 277 although labels sometimes continued to have the old address. In 1886 Rue Scribe closed and the labels had the new numbers and no Paris address. Thus it looks like the replacement Reilly label in the case would date from 1859 to 1868 (though I haven't seen its like - it is a logical conclusion).




The following label would be the authentic one for Obendorf's Reilly case:




Last edited by Argo44; 02/17/18 12:00 PM.

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