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Subject Scope & Mounts on Sauer & Sohn DR. It could be that Seifert had one or more patented mounting systems?


Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Thank you for adding them Raimey

Josef Seifert was one of the major citizens of Preßburg / Pozsony. His aegis went far beyond guns. He was not a gunsmith, but of course employed some. He was a merchant-at-large.

His obituary is worthwhile to read, on page 4 of the newpaper:
https://epa.oszk.hu/05800/05864/08572/pdf/EPA05864_westungarischer_grenzbote_1915_15003.pdf

As you can see, in 1915, his son Karl was already the boss of the company, which he has then continued under new political conditions in - then - (Czecho)Slowakia well into the 1930s.

Of interest is the (large) advertisement from the year 1900, here in page 7:
https://www.epa.oszk.hu/05800/05864/05931/pdf/EPA05864_westungarischer_grenzbote_1900_9699.pdf

Seifert - at that time still Josef the father, being in charge - did advertize here in this specific publicity notice mainly guns and hunting items. However, as other advertizements in the same newspaper show, the real business was very diversified and comprised men's clothing, ballroom attire, all kind of sports articles as well. This diversification was common at the time and very sensible for a large store in the very best and most central city location, indeed the highest of High Street, Fischertorgasse 4 / Rybárska brána 4 (truly comprising several "departments") in the largest or second largest city of Hungary, only 55 kilometres away from Wien (Vienna). The two cities of Wien and of Pressburg / Pozsony were at the time indeed repeatedly addressed as "sibling cities". A convenient and quick electric overland tramway (today you would say: light urban rail) linked them since 1914. Pressburgers almost exclusively looked out at Vienna, rarely at Budapest; this was true for the magyarized Poszony burghers as well.

Pressburg was by tradition and majority and ethnicity a clearly *German* city since the Middle Ages up about the 1920s, but it was at least trilingual in daily practice (German, Hungarian, Slowakian; the Jewish burghers mostly spoke German apart from Yiddish, which as proud and civilized city dwellers since 1840 (the opening of the ghetto) they quickly wanted to shed, because it was considered lowly, reminescent of the not really faraway bad old times and stench of the ghetto, and of shetelech countryside bumpkin jews): Pressburg citizens, rather than overtly jingoizing their changing ethno-cultural preference of the time, often when asked used to state their preferred nationality first and foremost as "Pressburger".
See this lovely intervieww: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ikw/divided-...ava-das-ende-einer-multiethnischen-stadt

The present citizens' historical association lovely website, https:/pressburgerkipferl.sk , hence is also trilingual, though virtually no Germans and few Hungarians were left after the expulsions of 1945/46. For those misled by the "official" magyarization campaigns in the late 19th and early 20th century, it deserves to be outlined and underlined that the Jewish population element was for a long time, the second largest, tightly followed by Hungarians. Slowaks often worked in the city in subordinate or mean positions, but mostly came fom the hinterland. Only after the Great War, the Slowak element very quickly grew in numbers. Karl Seifert had at some time modified the firm's stationery envelopes to Hungarian, and continued to use them up (sensibly and frugally) all the same in Czechoslowakian times.

Pressburg is a very typical, a wonderful example of the old "Central European" cities as they once existed, and of their cohabitating multiculturalism, like Lemberg and Czernowitz. To a lesser extent, I would also quote Brünn (Brno), but that issue is quite contended.

Prag, on the other hand, since the 19th century was viciously divided by cultural wars, and Czechs and Germans did not see eye to eye (yes, it was different in Mozart's time). Only fence-sitters were more hated than the "opposing" ethnic group in Prague.

Carcano

Lovely sleuthing there, 7,35 Carcano. The last paragraph of his Obit has few tid-bits of info. I do wonder what his major complaint might have been that led to his demise??



>>Josef Seifert came from an old Pressburg patrician family. His grandfather was a native of Pressburg. His father founded a grocery business on Spitalgasse in 1840; the son took it over in 1878 before establishing himself at the Tischlertor in 1883. Josef Seifert was born in Pressburg on March 19, 1848. He completed his secondary education (*Realschule*) in Pressburg and then business school in Vienna, serving as a one-year volunteer in an infantry regiment. In 1878, Josef Seifert married Marie Froz, his now deeply grieving widow. Two sons were born of this exceptionally happy marriage: Rudolf, who passed away a few years ago; Karl, the head of the flourishing business; and a daughter, Mariska, who is married to City Councilor Fritz Gagnodini.<<

Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Thank you very much for taking the time for all of that, very interesting! I’m still going through it all too. It’s nice to see there were Sauers retailed there since at least the turn of the century.

That's Luigi Bagnovini. Yes, I think "Stadtrepräsentant" can be translated as city councillor. His life data are given as 1880 or 1881 to 1928.

The family, of Italian origin, settled in the 17th century in Pressburg, as was not uncommon in Central Europe. Notwithstanding the seemingly (by English standards of conceit) lowly livelihood as a master chimneysweep and maybe chimney-builder (probably with a lot of employees and apprentices, and very steady income) the gentleman was also elected as commander of the city firefighters 1919-1924; presumably for merit, because he was a hero of the great fire of 1913, which raged for 12 days (17th to 28th May 1913) and destroyed much of the remaining (often empty) old buildings of the former ghetto and the castle hill district, and which he contributed - together with other firefighting units from surrounding towns and from as far as Vienna - to contain.
A scholarly study of this fire of European notoriety can be found here, it was a big media and lateron charity event, and is analyzed according to modern "event" theory:
Jozef Tancer: Der schwarze Sabbat. Die Brandkatastrophe in Pressburg 1913 als Medienereignis. 2012 Pressburg, 80 p. (Accessible via academia.edu)

For some time after the Great War, he was president of the Slowakian Association of chimneysweeps. After the Second War, his estate - probably still running under the old name - was confiscated by the communists.

WIthin the frame of Pressburg / Poszony, the gentleman definitely belonged to the respectable bourgeoisie, and is also listed as a active, maybe even good shooter. See his placement and prizing in 1909, at the III. Landes-Feldschießen. His guns doubtlessly would be from his father-in-law. :-) Pages 1-3, here:
https://epa.oszk.hu/05800/05864/07073/pdf/EPA05864_westungarischer_grenzbote_1909_12699.pdf

Carcano

Found an add back to 1840 listing clothing and sports articles, and a 1903 add listing a Mauser-karabély in Flobert cartridges, and Browning pistols etc.

Might you forward those 1840 & 1903 adverts & I will kindly post them.

This Seifert Kat likes the Charles Daly of PressBurg....

Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Seifert József- Alapittatott 1840(Established 1840)


Seifert József- Alapittatott 1840(Established 1840)





Serbus,

Raimey
rse