doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com E.M. Reilly; History; Chronology; Serial Numbers

Diggory Hadoke forwarded pictures of an old Reilly 12 ga. SN 21377 (circa Feb 1878 per the dating chart) which he said was pretty buggered up.



However it is interesting for 4 reasons:

1) the SN on the water table 23177 is different from the number on the tang, barrels, and forearm 21377. The SN is no doubt 21377. This is the third extant Reilly found with this sort of mistake:



2) Per above photo it appeared that there was a Purdey patent 1104 use number 3587 on the water table. However, the purdey patent expired in 02 May 1877. Previously the last such Purdey 1104 PUN was found on Reilly SN 20623 (Dec 1876), PUN 3463. There is a 1104 PUN 4257 on SN 20112 (early 1876). However, upon further investigation this is actually a Scott Spindle patent (WMS) #2752 PUN in Purdey style since they were often bundled together and the Scott patent didn't actually expire until 1879.


Scott Spindle patent (WMS) 2752 sample PUN from SN 21839


3). The Gun is left handed the first I’ve seen:


4). It belong to some Royal. Left-handedness was discouraged in the Victorian era. Queen Victoria herself was left handed but was made to write right handed. So far Diggory has not discovered which royal this might be – lack of records. (Diggory said the seller claimed it was Lord Ripon's gun but he was right-handed.)