doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Emil Flues

Rabbit,
Thank you for taking an interest in the ex-holder of the most profitable SxS patent, in the history of double shotguns. with this patent, Ithaca not only rose to prominence, but they were able bring several competitors to their fiscal knees, and even to cease production of their SxS lines.



Note. I do not give reproduction rights for these photos. (D.N.)
These photos are for the enjoyment/understanding of the DoubleGun BBS only

I must say, right up front that there are large gaping holes in my research work about Emil. I still don't know who he apprenticed under...I always suspected Allender, but only through proximity and transfer of skill. There is also some sensitive (unpublished) information that I cannot post because of the research sharks who would claim publication credit for themselves. Yes you are correct in that I live only about 500 yards from Emil's workshop. It still stands, but barely.Is there some aspect in particular that your interested in? I hope I have the answers for you.

I know you guys get some cold winters up north...Was Emil's shop heated or did he work in PendletOns ?

Mr. Chambers:

Do you know the whereabouts of Emil Flues' last gun which was a 0.410 SxS? Or would you happen to be the gunsmith who finished it?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

I believe his last .410 gun remains in the family. At least it did about 10 years ago. I almost had it purchased until a family member spoke for it. I think, other then my collection, it belongs with the family.

Raimey,
That gun was about next to last in importance in the Emil Flues story. His family got that gun by default when he passed. The reason I say this is because all throughout his indentured servant days (for lack of a better word), he took special pride in producing master works of art (engraved by Kornbrath) that he sent to family members who resided mainly on the west coast. One by one, all were stolen eventually...and that's probably why we don't see many to this day...The gun pictured above is one of the massed produced Flues guns of the twenties. Most collectors are not even aware that he attempted to mass produce double shotguns while living here in Buffalo NY.

Many of his master works are sidelocks though not all....it seems that there is just something about Kornbrath engraved guns that drives people to do unethical things that they wouldn't ordinarily do

Know nothing but I'm reading along.

jack

Robert

From what I have learned Emil Flues may be more under appreciated than any other designer, inventor or gunsmith of his time. Most has been lost to the fog of time and I suspect some of what is "known" is wrong. Should you publish I would certainly be glad for the chance to read what you have gathered.

As I've mentioned before, Emil had produced a gun for Ras Tafari in the 1920's. The Buffalo Newspaper reported that the gun cost over $3000 and "there isn't a spot on the barrels that can be touched with a pin that isn't covered in relief gold carvings of raised lions"...sounds over the top to me...and I doubt that Kornbrath engraved it, but who knows...I've yet to see a photo of the Selassie gun...I've yet to receive a reply from letters that I've written to the cultural museum in Addis Ababa...Maybe one day they'll be online...a university history professor, who was also an acquaintance of Selassie, once suggested that perhaps the gun is in Italy, as the Etheopeans were overran by the Italians who looted the palace where Selassie lived..
I was later told that Selassie's Biblical name is "The Lion of Juddah", but I don't know what that means...I only know him as Haille Selassie...Even though Selassie was not American, his many visits to the US are considered an important chapter in African American history...making that historic gun perhaps the most important gun in African American history

I wasn't aware of a SxS that cost $3000 dollars in the 1920's...who did Ithaca bring to their knees ?

Robert,
Have you seen the SBT that he made? It is pictured in Frank Conley's "The American Single Barrel Trap Gun" I would love to have one of guns he built.
Ross