doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Francotte Question

I am looking at what I'm told is an older (1890's) Francotte. The gun has the name B.D. Zisman engraved on the left sidelock and Bucharest on the right sidelock. On the barrel flats are Liege proof markings and AF in a circle. This is the only marking that could indicate it is a Francotte. Does anyone know if all Francottes have their name on the barrels and on the reciever? Any way to tell if this in fact a Francotte? It is a very high quality sidelock in 20 gauge. Thanks for the help, Gerry Addison, esetter5@roadrunner.com

Francotte did make guns for retailers and would mark them with the retailer's choice of names.

Gerry:

Does it have any additional proofmarks like Austrian or Hungarian? I think Romania was being influenced by Hungary about that time and was occupied by the Germans during WWI. I don't know of any Romanian proofmarks from that period but there were arsenals at Cugir(Bucharest/Bucarest)-, Sadu, and possible a few others. But Cugir and Sadu were combined to form RATMIL(Regia Autonoma de Technica Militara) and circa 1964 you begin to see Romanian marks on AK variants. They claim to have been in operation for 200 years - http://www.arms.home.ro/arms/pg/index.html .

I would say that B.D. Zisman was a firearms merchant, and possibly gunsmith, in Bucharest/Bucarest, Romania.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse