doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Meriden Firearms Co

I should have done this before. A pic of the album cover can be seen here
http://www.cornellpubs.com/Templates3/Meridan%201908.html

Drew, if you look at Cornell's catalogs, you will see that all of, or most of , their covers are made up. I suggest the 1908 date is not original. There are lots of other reprints out there with the wrong dates in their advertising. A Baker one comes to mind that was called 1915, but was actually a Folsom catalog from the 1920s. It started in the 80s, and even after notification of three companies doing the printing , the seller has not corrected the error. This has lead to some confusion on Baker history and I think you will find others erroneously dated. If we find an original catalog with the original date, then I stand corrected.

You're probably correct Daryl-did anyone else notice the catalog on the website is 'The Mediden Gun'?

Folsom did apparently used the neat Baker pic for some catalogs

Pete,
Aubrey appears in the patent record as living in Hopkinton Mass c1904...just incase your looking for more geneological clues...

Albert held at least 7 patents...

Daryl-

If Drew's catalogue has a spurious date then that does leave open the possibility that the AJ Aubrey line was "replaced" by the Meriden line. If so, that would have happened at some point in time after the departure of Aubrey, so it would be nice to look at the 1910 and later Sears catalogues and see if there are no longer any Aubrey firearms, but only the Meriden line. If so that would be some support for the evolution theory (re-branding) of the Aubrey line evolving into the Meriden line.

Others (and I have no way of knowing the basis for their comments) have stated that the Meriden line was marketed outside of the Sears catalogue, and to other retailers (i.e., hardware stores and sporting goods stores).

Serial numbers might also hold the key, but only if all the firearms were numbered in manufacturing sequence. Does anyone own (or has anyone seen) an AJ Aubrey hammer shotgun with a higher serial number than 24063?

Manufacturing details might also be a key. Does anyone own (or has anyone seen) an AJ Aubrey hammer shotgun with coil spring locks?

This is the sort of question the Sears company could answer very easily (and perhaps has already answered for the previous researchers).

I would love to see any articles on the Meriden and Aubrey lines if anyone would care to share them: dbadcraig@sbcglobal.net.

Doug

On the American Damascus thread, Robert raised a good point. Gun factories tended to get built were several "resources" were available, water (for power), rail and most importantly skilled labor.

I took Daryl's suggestion above and browsed (for only a few hours) the 1910 Census records looking for Meriden employees. The following is based on this casual venture and is by no means hard and fast. I found a number of men who were listed as "Laborers" with the Occcupation of "Gun Shop". I found a few blacksmiths also Occcupation of "Gun Shop" as well as a checkerer (sp?). Nothing surprising. Never did find my engraver(s). Then I noticed something. Almost to a man they had recently immigrated, in most cases date of immigration was 1906. A great many of them had their country of origin listed as Austria Poland. Again, none of this hard and fast...not sure I want to spend days scanning these records for a more accurate reading!

I thought about it some more. At 1st I thought, "Well I have found Meriden employees." Then I asked, "Why Meriden?" The answer of course is obvious, Parker Bros. Now I am not sure whose employees I was seeing.

On a side note, the "Brass Shop" and the "Silver Shop" employeed far more people than the "Gun Shop" in this little town.

So, did building the factory in Meriden hurt Parker? When it went out of business did that help Parker? When a corporate gorilla like Sears decides to play on your doorstep, I think perhaps some one made note of it.

Pete

Post deleted by HomelessjOe

Drew, is the "Mediden" gun a third gun in their history ?hmmm

My original catalog has a similar cover, but the gun is "The Meriden Gun"

db, I have heard of the Meriden line being marketed by others, but I have never seen them offered elsewhere . After reading Jim Perkins' article I see it is very well researched with names, places, and dates. Not like many "my gun" articles which only copy other people's mistakes. This article leads me to think that the Meriden, as was the Aubrey, was an exclusive line. It would be interesting to see if we could develope a serial no. group that might shed some more info on these guns. All of my observations have been the casual, not written down ones. In general when I saw a Meriden, I remember seeing higher numbers. And, when I saw an Aubrey, I thought low number. Nothing scientific or definitive here. I do think if we could have a bank of serial numbers on hand that we would find a few Aubrey numbers higher than a specific Meriden number. But if it were like other makers seem to have experienced, I would suggest that when Meriden started, their were some "old" Aubrey frames yet to be finished and we could find the odd , out of sequence , number.

Pete, thanks for the search of the records. I did not expect the immigrants to be Austrian. Too bad my memory on the engraver is not good. I think it came up in a discussion with the late Lanny Samson, who was a fine researcher. Maybe if we keep looking, good info will follow.

Daryl, Drew & Others: How many different Hardware or store brand Meridens have been noted..MDC

Daryl,

It sounds like a great idea. There is only so much that can be done with public records, catalogs, correspondence, etc. The best data always seems to come from documenting the serial numbers and the changes that occur.

Pete