doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com French Shotgun help Identify Maker & Engraver

(deleted - hopelessly corrupted) (dang that was easy...wish I had the power to.....oh forget it)

Saharan internet strikes again...let me try to recreate this post:

The "Advertisement" (block 1) will be "Double Epreuve"....i.e. "double proofed."

The barrel may have been made (or choke bored) by "Seyve." Seyve is a good Stephanois name...been around for centuries (and it is also an Irish name). I cannot for the moment say which "Seyve" but it may have been Jean Seyve. His daughter got married in 1934 in Saint-Etienne and his occupation was listed as "Armurier" (gun-repairer or gun trade; "arquabusier" being the formal word for gun maker; "canonnier" being the word for barrel maker.)

France has been centrally controlled from Paris for centuries and to this day 50% of the French economy is State owned. So there are records. it has an excellent graves registry associated with its Catholic past. Saint-Etienne since the 1500's has been the center of French arms industry and like Birmingham or Liege, trying to figure out who did what amongst the hundreds of firms making components is difficult.

Here are a few Seyve's from the Stephanois press which may be associated with the family:
1855 - Antoine Seyve, Armurier (his death)
1876 - Francois Seyve, Armurier (death of a baby)
1875 - Joseph Seyve, Armurier (death of a baby)
1876 - Francois J.J. Seyve, Armurier, rue du Treuil, 102 (death of a baby)
1905 - Joseph Seyve, Armurier (death of his widow)
1934 - Jean Seyve, Armurier ( marriage of his daughter Marthe Seyve)

As Raimey has figured out, I'm in the middle of no-where again for a few weeks and will work on this a bit more. We'll try to determine who is "AB" but that can also be very difficult. Gene Williams

Oh, and I started learning about French doubles from Larry...Check out the chokes...they may be "full" and "beyond full." Shooting my "Wonder" 12 bore was like popping at Clays with a rifle.
http://doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=448156&page=5

FAB, lovely gun...wonderful for the uplands. I hope you put it to good use.

Rick, I know this is probably silly, but don't forget the gun is chambered for 2 1/2" shells. You'll need to order them from someplace. RST works for me...they deliver.

Argo44:

I believe you mean Arquebusier(Hakenb�chse derivative)? Hope the sun hasn't go to you????

Cheers,

Raimey
rse

Raimey, did you see my post on that book "Incidents of Foreign Sport and Travel," 1894, by Colonel Pollok, commenting on Liege? I sort of dropped it into the Reilly line for your benefit.

I did not but many thanks for the heads-up. I was mainly reading where you had been w/ the red pencil. Really fancy the term "slop-shop".....


Cheers,

Raimey
rse

Re Argo's discussion of "Helice": It is true that V-C did not patent that name. However . . . they did patent "Helice Grip", as shown on one of the top levers above. (However, with an extra p on the end . . . would that have circumvented V-C's patent? Je ne sais pas.)

Re "my" contention concerning the meaning of "Helice": It isn't my contention that "Helice" refers to a locking system patented by V-C. Rather, it is the contention of none other than Claude Verney-Carron (then president of the company) in a nice letter I received from him concerning an article of mine which was published in the July/August 2002 issue of Shooting Sportman. I quote from the letter:

"Helice was the name of the locking system patented by my great grandfather Jean Verney-Carron at the beginning of the 20th century. When the patent expired and fell in the public field a lot of gun makers from Saint-Etienne adopted the system for their own use."

He goes on to make clear that just the word "Helice" was not one of V-C's trademarks.