doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Gastinne Renette Brochure

I recently picked up an interesting bilingual Gastinne-Renette pamphlet dating to roughly 1840–1843, shortly after Gastinne and Renette joined forces.

It advertises their shooting gallery on the Champs-Élysées, along with live pigeon and rabbit shooting at the Bois de Boulogne. The brochure promotes pistol and carbine shooting indoors, mechanical targets, instruction, and various leisure rooms, essentially presenting the establishment as a gentleman’s sporting salon rather than just a gun shop.

One detail I particularly like is the English translation. It’s clearly a very literal rendering of the French and reads a bit awkwardly in places, almost as if the French text was translated word-for-word rather than rewritten for an English audience.

A neat little snapshot of how shooting culture was being marketed in Paris in the early 1840s.

Amazing to find paper that old.

I have friend that used to shop in their pairs Paris store. It was apparently very nice. I have acquired guns from him. This is still in one of the cases :

Some decades ago, I saw in an Anchorage antique shop a pair of these guns. They were 28 ga. Hammer guns and maybe the best of high quality guns I had ever seen. I wish I had pictures, but do not. The company could produce the highest quality of almost any item.

Super interesant Aaron. You have an amazing collection. the closure of this store in Paris possibly signaled the end of an era.

No one has ever used gastinnerenette.com either although it was registered for about a decade. I registered it a year or so ago. and maybe I'll do something with it some day. But for now it routes to one of their oldest competitors!

Some day I need to pick up one of the pinfires they sold like https://www.holtsauctioneers.com/asp/fullcatalogue.asp?salelot=S0919+++2059+&refno=++137719

I was interested to see in the brochure that they offered “TUBES for steam machines”.

Presumably the inner boiler pipes for steam boilers?

Not the most obvious product for carriage trade gunmakers, but no doubt a spin-off from their barrel forging and boring skills.

Haha. Thanks for the insight. We've discussed this before. But,Manufrance and most of the other French shotguns makers in Saint-Etienne made bicycles after 1890 during the off season. One supposes tubing, welding and machinery and demand was behind this. By the way a lot of them also produced sewing machines and other industrial items.