doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Dating early 20th Century French Shotguns

There are elements of this chart that I just don't understand. Bis is the French equvilent of "sub-category" or of 1 and 1a. Tre is the equivalent of a second sub-category, But without examples, I just can't read these charts. Perhaps someone can interpret. (edit: These are model numbers.)







I'll give a rough translation of the last paragraph.

Warning: the user can expect to find a chart on the beginning or the end of a model number series for the IDEAL from the end of the 19th and from the beginning of the 20th century and in effect Manufrance published 4 catalogues for the public at large per year, and one or two deluxe editions and several other catalogues specially for gun shops. It is not unusual to find that a type of gun or model was proposed at the beginning of a year and not in the last trimester (or the inverse). This is simply linked to production objectives

I therefore set out to make a chronological model number identification chart which would be the closest to reality such that the collector or the amateur might have a base in order to detect fantastical markings, false markings or the refitting of replacement parts from various sourses.

For the Robust: Can anyone interpret these umbers?

Gene, those are model numbers and years mfg'd for the Robust. For example, I have a Robust 226 which appeared in 1931 and was last made in 1940. Gil

Got it Gil...I had to translate the last paragraph on the IDEAL to understand. Still don't quite understand the 1 - 1 bis, etc... So no Serial numbers for Robusts - just model numbers?

Robusts did have SN's. Or at least all the ones I owned did. They ranged from older ones to a couple later imports from several years after WWII.

No known list of Robust serial numbers. It's all anecdotal through extrapolations and best guesses. I assume old catalogs were mined for the Robust list. MF was the king of French mail-order catalogs.

"Bis" means two (or twice) in Latin, and "ter", three.
In this case my catalogs show that many grades could be ordered with an extra quality for 10FF more. There is a blurb early in the catalog, explaining those are just better than average guns giving better results for range and accuracy. Looks pretty arbitrary to me, and a marketing ploy to up-sell, no doubt.
I did not see a "ter" in my 1900 and 1910 catalogs but undoubtedly it would be a similar thing.
I have never seen an ideal marked "bis" or "ter" so there is probably no way to know now what the difference was...
Best regards,
WC-

No SN list but I believe that the grade cutoff between xx and 3xx happened at the same time on the Robust than on the ideal (in the late 1920s IIRC).
WC-

Doh, that was right there for everyone to see.
1931 is the cutoff.
WC-

Add a little new to the topic. Several years ago I bought ROBUST 24. As I saw from the list, this model was made from 1925 to 1930. The gun is working, I go with him to hunt for a duck. May be anyone have more info about this model?