interesting and perceptive observation Larry. the "Helice-Crip" "Brevet" "SGOG" does not have a left stop.
I believe this is Skeetx's gun and I believe we've discussed it several times without understanding exactly what it was...I think he asked once if it were VC and we gave mixed replies. I wonder what patent the gun is referring too if not VC's?
And I still think you should put quote marks "Helice locking system," when referring to VC's 4 lock invention.
I've never thought about the through bolt business on a top lever. Interesting. Very well done. Now I'd like to tear into my "Wonder" to see what's actually there...If I wasn't afraid that I couldn't put it back together again.
Doubt if it's a VC. Their "Marque deposee" was "Helice Grip" (with only one p). I'm guessing the maker of this gun added the 2nd p in order to avoid an issue with V-C, since with only a single p it was a registered V-C trademark. Not sure what was patented in the case of this gun.
Since M. Neltir clearly credits V-C with having patented a Helice system to which they added a 4th lock, and since he also states that otherwise no Helice system was ever patented, then it would seem that V-C does deserve credit for holding what appears to be the only patent on such a system. So I'm not sure why the quotation marks would be necessary. The fact that other makers used an unpatented Helice system without the 4th lock (or that they may have used V-C's 4 lock version after the patent expired) doesn't really mean much. What we can all agree on is that V-C never had a trademark on the name "Helice" all by itself, and that just the name "Helice" on a gun does not mean it was made by V-C. As a matter of fact, if there's only the word "Helice", it would mean that the gun was NOT made by V-C. What they did was trademark several variants of the word.
Certainly confusing where guns marked with "Helice" or some variant are concerned.
