I've speculated about Reilly's decline. Something happened to cause him to close 2 rue Scribe in July-Aug 1885; it had been open for 17 years. Then there seemed to be a gradual but very steady decline in advertising after 1886.
E.M. died in July 1890. He was a marketing genius who kept all the balls in the air - exhibiting at international exhibitions, trying to grab military contracts, hobnobbing and social networking, etc. I don't know who ran the firm for the next 10 years between his death and 1900. Reilly had 3 sons. Charles (born 1873) who was 17 and still in school when he died; Bert (b. 1877) age 13 when he died. And Edward Montague, born 1870 out of wedlock but acknowledged, who would have been 20. Edward was associated with the firm in some way but died in 1895 at the age of 25. His wife Mary was still in her 40's but it doesn't look like she took an interest in gunmaking.
So it could have been a management problem. It doesn't look like E.M. prepared anyone to succeed him and he may have been a micro-manager. Also, as discussed on the Reilly line, Reilly always had multiple streams of revenue coming into the company. For instance, I think he made guns for other makers to put their name on them. I speculate that when he decided to sell off the rack in 1881, he may have cut back on this revenue stream and at the same time his cost of supporting an large inventory went way up.
His "military" revenue stream dried up in the early 1870's - he held the patent on Reilly Comblains and manufacturing rights on Green Bros Breech loader. In the 1860's-early 1870's he made thousands of these someplace. By the time the Martini Henry was formally adopted though, sales of these breech loaders declined. He made a lot of Martini's but the manufacturing was controlled by Enflied.
His guns still got a lot of play in the press and from international hunters using them but after E.M.'s death the publicity just sort of dropped out of sight. Bert didn't start running the company apparently until about 1900 when he was 23. By that time times had changed..
And he had targeted a very specific market segment in gun making...make a quality product for a cheap price and deliver it rapidly. I'm wondering if he started to get competition from factory made steel barrels and production in th e1890's rivaling his price structure and his ability to respond to orders.
A mystery for sure....maybe I'll turn up something in Library of Congress...where I've found some very interesting bits to add to the story. Sally, who posted on the Reilly line, is a descendant of JC and EM and has some additional information on his personal life.
Last edited by Argo44; 09/24/19 08:44 PM.
