|
S |
M |
T |
W |
T |
F |
S |
|
|
|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
10
|
11
|
|
12
|
13
|
14
|
15
|
16
|
17
|
18
|
|
19
|
20
|
21
|
22
|
23
|
24
|
25
|
|
26
|
27
|
28
|
29
|
30
|
31
|
|
|
|
3 members (Mike Harrell, bushveld, 1 invisible),
854
guests, and
4
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
Forums10
Topics38,496
Posts545,386
Members14,410
| |
Most Online1,344
Apr 29th, 2024
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 221 Likes: 44
Sidelock
|
Sidelock
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 221 Likes: 44 |
Igor:
Me thinks you to be most correct in Courally being an investor. In most, with few exceptions, a partnership is composed of a fella with capital & a mechanic with talent. Have you any information that Courally was an actual arquebusier and attained the rank of master? Probably operated the concern on the coattails of Lebeau?
Cheers,
Ramey
rse Raimey, I have`t such information. Unfortunately I can only repeat. I’m afraid we’ll never know whether Courally was a great gunmaker or engineer. Regards, Igor
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 10,791 Likes: 185
Sidelock
|
|
Sidelock
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 10,791 Likes: 185 |
Not making any comparisons, but to me the brace of fellas(Lebeau-Courally) brings to mind Charles Daly & H.A. Lindner. Daly too was a bloody genius, but the talent died with him.
Cheers,
Raimey
rse
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 221 Likes: 44
Sidelock
|
|
Sidelock
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 221 Likes: 44 |
May be. Lindner and the best German boxlock are
synonyms for me.
Regards,
Igor
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 221 Likes: 44
Sidelock
|
|
Sidelock
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 221 Likes: 44 |
upd - or was it Larderet's idea to name models after Russian nobility? Hi, Alex Larderet's or Courally`s does`t matter. Important this idea worked
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 11,379 Likes: 105
Sidelock
|
|
Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 11,379 Likes: 105 |
Hi, Mark
It's not a mistake. Bitkov wrote Galan a`Galan (word for word), but not Galand. It's hard to say what he had in mind
Regards,
Igor From an English speaker with some knowledge of Russian: Galan a Galan works as a Russian version of Holland and Holland. Think Halan . . . but Russian doesn't have an H like ours.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 5,021
Sidelock
|
|
Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 5,021 |
In other words, can we assume that Ferdinand Courally had the wherewithal to raise a gun into the 'Best' category over such a short period of time or was that gunmaker, August Lebeau, already considered one of the best?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 10,791 Likes: 185
Sidelock
|
|
Sidelock
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 10,791 Likes: 185 |
Once again, I digress to the Daly - Lindner alliance. Daly, like all other firearms merchants did not want any evidence that would suggest his shop did not manufacture his wares. Lindner was the unsung draft mule & had it not been for the loss of his son in the early fighting with the Brits in the Great War, the Lindner hallmark of quality would have been better appreciated. True fit & finish doesn't bode of the quality but the illiterate client, who was just unaware of the processes of sporting weapons manufacture, assumed that if he purchased from the wares of a top retailer, then he was guaranteed quality. Until now, there wasn't a protocol for summing quality based on the superposition of effort by the most talented mechanics.
Cheers,
Raimey
rse
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 534
Sidelock
|
|
Sidelock
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 534 |
Except that the other judgment from 1898 does not mention Courally whatsoever.
Either he was part of a different corporation with Lebeau post bankruptcy, or he bought the name after AL's death. Or maybe he bought the brand from the bank which received the assets left behind after his death.
Basically unless I am missing something, there is today no evidence that Courally worked with Lebeau while he was alive.
Again this discussion is kind of irrelevant.
Gunmakers (and many industrialists) need a few elements
- a Marketing strategy
- Technology
- a skilled workforce
- capital
Examples abound of successful companies where the lead person is a sole marketer who make do without most of the other bits.
Harris Holland was one, but William Evans, WJ Jeffery and many others are in that category.
Some companies start that way and gather the workforce later (H&H), others go the other way around and end up outsourcing their fare (such as Gastinne-Renette).
Even Purdey acquired their flagship technology from Beesley.
There is nothing wrong with that, those are just different business models.
Again, at the end of the day, what matters most for us is the end result e.g. the gun.
There is no way that the court of Russia would have used substandard or even average implements, so if they used Courally's stuff, it had to be very nice. After all, they had shooting events with all the crowned heads of Europe, so they certainly could not look bad.
The Liege trade was plenty good enough to produce top quality anything.
Who actually did it, we'll likely never know.
Of course, the quality of the stuff sent to St-Petersburg might have been entirely different from the bulk of the production. So as always, this a gun by gun evaluation.
Best regards,
WC-
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 534
Sidelock
|
|
Sidelock
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 534 |
By the way AL left over 207000Francs at this death, and that was a large amount of money (even though he owed over 300000 francs from the Lebeau freres bankruptcy).
So no matter what he did after that bankruptcy, he did make a lot of money. Doing what kind of activity?
At that time a Franc was worth exactly 4.5grams of Silver. So his assets were equivalent to one tonne of Silver, not a small quantity.
Best regards,
WC-
|
|
|
|
|
