doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com On the subject of Guild guns

I think it is wrong to think of the Guilds as Unions as we now understand them.
Today the word Union is totally associated with socialism and although the guilds may have possibly have been socialist in political leaning, their primary objective was to organise the training and apprentices for their particular trade.
They officiated over the completion of the apprentices' training and often were responsible for the welfare of retired craftsmen.

I know that 'Union and 'Socialism' are dirty words in many societies but one must remember that in 19th century Europe, those with money and position often held power of life or starvation over their workers, however well qualified, and that many of the guns that we worship were produced under the most awful working conditions, especially in the regions that produced guns at the cheaper end of the spectrum.
You can hardly blame those craftsmen from trying to wrest a little power from their masters. Hence the introduction of the unions as we have come to know them.

Also noteworthy that the Belgians were producing and selling/providing technology to the natives which was decades out of date and decidedly inferior to the firepower the colonizers wielded.

And this is exactly how we account for the sudden production of damascus. 1683 - Siege of Vienna. The defeat of Kara Mustafa Pasha by Jan III Sobieski at Vienna. This was the key date in the development of European Damascus as suddenly thousands of pattern welded gun barrels were available for examination. So that by 1700 Liege is producing Damascus barrels. And in 1718, Portugal is producing Damascus barrels.

We know that Kara Mustafa Pasha was hiring Italian gun makers. After the conflict, they returned to Europe.

I don't intend to rehash the damascus threads, but rather present proof to what Raimey refers to as "walk about".

Pete

Toby,

Very well put. From the British experience it is very informative.

There was a figure in the early 1900's in Belgium, his name escapes me (and I still unable to access my research files maybe after another few months of physical therapy). He was instrumental in turning the guilds towards the unions and from there along the lines of socialism, as we know it in Europe.

I would really hope that those outside the US and UK offer their thoughts on this subject.

Pete

To get back to what we often refer to as "guild guns": Most of them, in most major gunmaking countries (cities like Liege, Birmingham, St. Etienne etc) were made by independent outworkers, each doing their own specialized job (stocker, actioner, etc). Some of those same outworkers also did work for major "name" manufacturers, so it gets a little hard to sort out. But a lot of "name" guns were made the same way as the "no name" guns we see from Europe. Same deal, with various outworkers contributing to the product. And the name you see is the name of the "gunmaker" whose shop sold the gun--on which said gunmaker might have done some of the work, or maybe none at all other than arranging to have it made. Vouzelaud, a French gunmaker (now apparently having their guns made elsewhere) used to advertise the fact that they used the best outworkers in St. Etienne to make their very nice doubles. They were just a bit more straightforward and honest about their gunmaking process than were/are many other "makers".