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LOVENA - by Felix Neuberger /
photo gallery to follow
DGJ issue winter 1995 had my article on J. Nowotny from Prague.
In that article I included the names of some other gunmakers
one may find on Czech guns. Besides others also the name of
Lovena. I said there that the name is derived from the
three owners of the company. That was hearsay many years ago
and came from an old Czech collector. I got hold some time ago of a protocol-copy of the founding meeting of Lovena dating from march 26, 1920. I was curious to find out if this hearsay
had any substance. Lovena was founded as a cooperative. The
protocol tells that the members of the board ("functionaries") were Vaclav Novotny, Norbert Lesak and
Alois Machac. If you take the Czech word for "hunting" LOV
and you add the initials of the prenames of these three
gentlemen you end up with LOVVNA. From this to LOVENA is just
a phonetic adjustment. Not too bad for a hearsay which was
kept alive for many decades.
I said in an Internet forum that Lovena is still on my
"To-do-list". It has been my intention to provide completed
staffwork on it. To do this it would be necessary to do
three things.
First: Get hold of the company-archive and
do a thorough research therein. I asked Jan Tetrev director of the Pardubice museum re this archive. He recommended me to contact the company holding the name. I did it telling I want to come up with an article... No answer to my e-mail. The same
no-answer-story I have seen from someone else. I am not sure if the archive still exists, as for instance the archive of
A. Machac has been dumped by his daughter after he passed
away in 1978.
Second: Do a complete or at least year-sample research of the Prague and Weipert proofhouse record from
the company start to at least feb. 1948, the communist takeover to the country , possibly also after that date.
Previous accesses to these proofhouse records have been
enabled/initiated by a former collegue of mine.
I am not sure if this is still possible.
For instance access to Viennese proofhouse records has been
shut down after change of management and legal counsel
within the ministry. This is now office/state secret.
Third: Get hold of any timewitness to complete with any useful background info. My contacts - "old boys network" - date back
to the late 1990's , if still alive +- 80 years old.
On the other side I understand from two different sources
that descendants of J. Nowotny are alive and have finally shown up. I have tried to get into contact with the
granddaughter/descendants of F. Faukner. The management
of the graveyard in Prague where Faukner is buried told
me that the address is confidential. I sent them a letter
asking to forward it to the descendants. No replay ever.
To proceed under this environment would be a mix of retry, escalation and rescouting the country.
Not being a resident to Prague or this country this would be a multiple-weeks offshore task and even for a "below doctorate thesis" level far beyond any reasonable scope.
This has not been a Purdey-type company to deserve such endeavour.
Despite the many open ends I have decided to close this
matter by providing some background info and photos
of Lovena guns I came across in the last decades.
Many years go I found an opulently engraved gun with Lovena
name on the scrap barrels in a small village in north-western
Bohemia. I took this gun together with a gun with the wording
A. Machac on the barrels to Francotte/Liege for rebarreling and
identification. I showed both guns to A.Francotte, who had sold his company years before but was present at my visit.
He identified the Lovena due to the mark ML on the barrelflats
as originating from the Liege company of "Manufacture Liegeoise". The second with the Machac name had Belgian
proofmarks from 1937 and its serial nr. was 43545.
A. Francotte turned it in his hands and told me it has been
built by Dumoulin. I will include in the potogallery
a Lovena with serial 43554, also proofed in 1937. So same
year of proof like the Machac, "neighbouring" serial-nr, one
would have to assume that it was built by the same
Dumoulin and this time retailed by Lovena.
At this Liege trip I met also a man who said he owns
"Manufacture Liegeoise" and he gave me a catalogue of this
company. My Francotte-rebarreld Lovena was their top-grade
model 4990E.
This is the genuine problem one faces when trying to find
out who built these Lovena guns, as long as there is no
chance to get access to a company archive. Also proofhouse records do not tell company origin , only country.
The single gun which I consider to be most probably genuine
Lovena production due to its LOV-logo on the system is a
sweety 16-bore Anson , which emerged in near-new condition
from a big Austrian collection and was on the market in recent
times. The late owner had so many guns so one could understand the untouched state. Paradoxon, no one wanted it, it finally
ended up in an English auction.
Czech artisan gunmaking phased out in two steps. The first
was when the predominantly German gunmakers/outworkers of
Weipert/Vejprty were expelled in 1945. The second and final one has been the communist takeover in feb. 1948, when all
these private gunmaking enterprises were nationalised and
their fortunes confiscated. Depending on the situation
the previous owners could continue as clerks/salesman
within the "trade" or were forced into other "trades" or
in case of "continued operation" could end up in prison
like J. Teichmann from Olomouc got a 17-year imprisonment.
Anyhow, someone had to cater for the 100000 hunters and
the 10000 shooters of this country. The then nationalised
Lovena was one organisation who did it.
In the 1970's Lovena had a total of 16 outlets throughout
Czechoslovakia, what are today Czech republic and Slovakia.
I remember the Prague outlet in Ladova street, managed by the
longtime Lovena employee Stanislav Pesata. It was mainly
a repair/maintenance shop and finally shutdown in 1995.
References: Protocol of founding meeting and Strelecka review
1975.

Wonderful
Thank you for sharing
Mike

Felix, as the owner of a lovely Lovena sidelock, I am disappointed to read that you have reached a bit of a dead end as far as being able to put together a more complete history. But I really look forward to seeing and reading whatever you post.

to Canvasback
I assume the Lovena you refer is in a previous thread.
This looks to me as a Weipert (falling tree) and
Suhl cooperation.
Regards Felix