doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com J. Seifert Bratislava

All I can find online are a handful of scopes marked as such, does anyone have more information? I have a 1935 proofed rifle with another scope with bases marked to him. I’m wondering if they specialized in optics mounting as I’ve yet to see a gun marked?

I don't really see much on puskaműves és fegyvermester József Seifert, less he looks to have started in Vienna(Wien) during the rein of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and later moved to Levice and Bratislava, Slovakia.

I will make some contacts & see what can be unearthed. Maybe Jani has a bit of info?


Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Thank you Raimey, I had a feeling you would know something on him, even having the correct first name can be of use now. The optic mounting is unusual, it’s both similar to a typical SEM, but also quite different, showing some Czech influence IMO on the rear mount. Regards,
Clay

Also of interest, of the Seifert marked optics mountings I have been able to locate, all three are fundamentally quite different.

If you could post fotos of yours or links to the others, someone may be able to point out the platform. I would venture a guess since Fegyvermester József Seifert started in Vienna, that many of his scope mounts would be those of Vienna or similar.

Czech & Slovakian are both difficult to search due to their sentence structures.

Speaking of languages, our local Cuban Restaurant owners both speak & can translate Russian & Bulgarian, and possibly a few other Slavic based languages similar to Russian. I think the couple met in translation school or on the job. Wanting my kids to take note and possibly learn something I pressed him in his native tongue of Spanish as to why & he kindly replied in English in order for my Boys to fully understand. But in Communist Cuba, the government chooses your occupation; therefore, your education. And since the Bulgarians, which are and odd lot in language & other things, invested heavily in Communist Cuba. In the event you chosen to be an Engineer in Cuba, you were shipped off to Bulgarian to Engineering School.

Our Cuban friend did give that the 2nd day on the raft ride from Cuba to Florida was a bit rough, and may have been similar to Castro's boat ride from the Yucatan???? Both a story for another day.


Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Is the mount anything similar to this Springer Kombo in 16 - 6,5X70R that I just acquired and is being shipped from Alaska?






On these flip-up sights, what does the »100-150<«exactly mean?

Serbus,

Raimey
rse

It means that the first rear sight blade is calibrated for the cartridge's GEE (you do know the meaning of GEE, right?), which is about 125-130 metres. Hence the shot would hit point blank at this distance, and lower at a shorter or longer distance. But between 100 and 150 metres, the bullet will still hit within the desired 4 cms of the point of aim or below.

The second flip-up sight also shows you that the trajectory parable is quite steep (the typical bullet was a 7,6 or 7,7 grams Teilmantelflachkopfgeschoss).

PS: Those knowledgeable in Austro-Hungarian arms lore will wonder whence my apparent certainty about the measurement unit cometh, since Austro-Hungarian *military* arms were calibrated in "Schritte" (paces), like the Russians (arshin, which is longer), and not in metres. Well, simple: it is merely a conjecture. For civilian use, the metrical system was introduced already in 1876. And the first blade (there is no fixed base step here) usually would be calibrated at the GEE.The GEE is farther away with this cartridge, than a measure of 100 to 150 paces.

Regards,
Carcano

You are most correct about the »paces« dimension.

So, I would need to aim @ a target that was at least 8cm in size between those pacing distances?

Serbus,

Raimey
rse

I would guess the »Gee« to be that Indian Butter concoction, or his that »Ghee« ?


Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Raimey,
That looks like a typical Vienna snapper correct? If so, one of the examples I located of Seifert marked mounts are of at least a similar type, which as you say, would correspond with his time in Vienna nicely. I still don’t know how to post pictures on this forum, but here are links to some existing examples. I just located an example of a gun apparently marked to him as well sold at Hermann.

https://veryimportantlot.com/en/lot/view/hahnbockbuchsflinte-seifert-bratislava-346489



Here’s a scope that I’m thinking has some Czech influence in the mounting?

https://aukro.cz/druha-svetova-valk...zielvier-j-seifert-bratislava-7101140586




Here’s the Vienna-ish style? The front retaining mechanism seems a bit different than I’m used to?

https://www.lugerforums.com/threads...utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic

Mine is different from all of these yet again on a double rifle.

Carcano,
Contextually, I believe I understand the meaning of this acronym, please explain more though, if you don’t mind.

Hopefully Ford or Jani will stop by & enlighten us. A last effort would be to ask Axel E.


Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Hensoldt


Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Thank you, I’ll snap some pictures of my rifle tonight or tomorrow. The mount on the Zeiss is quite similar to those on a zg47, though the eye relief is surely incorrect where it’s mounted so it must be off of a different gun. It also looks a fair bit older if I had to guess.

Kaliber 8x57 IR, 16/65, Nr. 1045.24, österreichischer Beschuss. Lauflänge 68 cm, beide Läufe sehr rauh. Vorkriegsfertigung. Lange Hahnschlosse mit großen Hähnen, vorderer Abzug als Rückstecher, Jagdstückgravuren Rehe und Gamswild. Nussbaumschaft mit deutscher Backe, Schaftlänge 35,5 cm. Stahlabschlusskappe. Zielfernrohr Kahles 2,3 - 7 X 36, Absehen 1. Länge 110 cm.

Austrian w/ metal buttplate so probably WWI or prior.


Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Well, I just haven't made any enroads to info on ole Büschenmacher Puskaműves J. Seifert in Bratislava. Maybe some member can be so kind as to check Der Neue Stöckel??? He must have been some obscure firearms merchant for which information has been lost to the ravages of time.

But I can say that before the 2nd Major Dissagreement in Europe, there was some spectacular Pigeon(Holub) shooting in Totmegyr and around Britislava where Britislava Pigeons fed on pea & corn fields. But that train has sailed......

I don't know that there are any tid-bits of info on the superb Pistol Shooter Denk's thread, who advertised as »Vereinsbüchsenmacher« Franz Denk, but maybe Seifert was mentioned in some of the references.......


https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=647056&page=all

Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Jetzt hör' endlich mit dem Scheiß auf, Raimey, du bist nur noch PEINLICH.

Peinlicher als Orbán (and that's an achievement).

Troll !

Ah, 7,35 Carcano, it can't be that embarrassing.

Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Raimey, just made a quick search of both Stockel & DGJ Index with no luck on mention of J. Seifert. Sorry, no help. m-4

I suppose my double’s mount, must be an adaptation of the typical snapper mount, it just locks in a bit differently than I’m used to seeing. No hits in the Waffen Lexikon either. I sent you pictures of it Raimey.

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

But the question still begs, did Seifert József have his own scope mount(s) and file for patent protection? I will have to thumb thru the German patents to see. In fact Seifert József may have expired @ or just before the scope craze and his son or his mechanics may have devised a scope mount system?

Serbus,

Raimey
rse

In fact, Seifert József and Charles Daly all but led parallel lives, but on different tectonic plates. The two are almost mirror images of one another.


Serbus,

Raimey
rse

The (Royal) Hungarian Patent Office was founded in 1896. https://sztnh.gov.hu/en/home/hipo-130

But a patent could as well have been applied for in Vienna or in Berlin. After 1919, Bratislava (as Preßburg / Pozsony was then called) belonged to the Czechoslowakian Republic,so Karl Seifert might as well have a patent filed there. His national competitors would have sat in Weipert / Vejprty, also directly situated on the (other) border.

Seeing Pozsony/Preßburg/Bratislava and Vejprty, are separated by say 460 km, and you note Vejprty(Prague generally) having National Competitors of Seifert József, did these two areas for the most part supply the needs of the Hunters of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, i.e., did the Austro Hungarian Empire mainly source wares from the West margin of the Empire¿


Lẹ̑p Pozdrȁv,

Raimey
rse

Apparently, Johann Springer's Erben biggest clients were of the House of Lubomirski, Polish szlachta(Nobility). Then the Russians arrived @ the end of WWII and confiscated all the Guns, & possibly more, and that's how so many Bohemian examples landed up in Russia; much like that of all the German Guns that landed up in the U.S. of A. Pozsony/Preßburg/Bratislava - Vienna was a collection point for cultures and about any else & it was there that Seifert József left his mark.....



Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Yes, Springer and Seifert they were both merchants, and had their suppliers and gunsmiths (and of course, also an in-house mechanic or two). Josef Seifert was ethnically German, but Hungarian was the official language in the then (post-1867) heavily magyarized Kingdom of Hungary, and was also considered posh, even in numerous German households.
Thanks to the posted advertizements, we can see that he pandered his goods both in German and in Hungarian. From what little I could discern from an Hungarian firearms blog, he or at least his firm (under his son Karl) was also one of the Colt distributors of Hungary, apart from e.g. Josef or Julius Kirner.

As to their pre-1918 customers, they were not equal in rank. Julius Springer was not a mere Hoflieferant (purveyor to the Court), of which there were thousands in Austria-Hungary. He was a KAMMERLIEFERANT, and as such probably more aristocratic than many courtiers. Josef Seifert certainly did not count only commoners among his clientèle, but still a significant part of the Western Hungarian aristocracy.