I am wanting to identitfy an old double barrel my grandfather purchased in the 1920's. It has not been seen since the late 1930's, but my father can remember a few things about it. It was hammerless, had auto ejectors, 32" full/mod barrels, engraved with ducks or pheasants, and 2 triggers. I do have a photo of the bottom of the gun while it was leaning against a tree. Another photo shows a leg-o-mutton case. He lived in southern Illinois and probably nevered traveled outside of this area. My Father also said there was no brand name on it, but the barrels said Krupp. I tried to attach the photo, but i'm not sure it will up load. If you have any ideas I would greatly appriciate the help

Looks like a violation of the various Federal laws protecting accipiters- why would anyone want their foto taken with a dead hawk, owl, or Eagle? Our DNR closed a public access marsh to All hunting or trapping to protect a pair of Bald Eagles-- The shotgun looks like a Crescent or Knickerbocker- how it got Krupp barrels, which the Krauts cut off to American gunmakers after they sunk the Lusitania in 1916 (so figure that one, ey??) beats me--

Dude, he didn't say Grandpa bought the gun new in the 1920s, just he bought it then. Further, there was a time when taking a hawk or an owl was actually encouraged by various fish and game departments, as they had bounties on them.
Maybe one of the experts shall speak, but, with 32" barrels, that semi-pistol and the shape of the bottom of the frame, I'd guess a Baker.
I can't get very much from the photo.

Best,
Ted

Thanks Ted, I was hoping the very pointed forearm might be a key to this puzzle

I had a great uncle who was a game warden in Northern IL. in the years prior to WWII. I remember him telling me that hawks and owls were not protected back then.

Many hawks and owls were considered varmints long after WWII. Hawks should still be. Here in Utah, there seem to be more hawks than game birds. Guess why!

That bird is probably just a skinny turkey...those were the Depression days, you know.

gun kinda looks like an Elsie... has a "ribbed" action. But who knows, could be anything, my guess: It's definately not an 870!

It looks like a young Red-Tailed Hawk to me. Without looking it up, I don't know if they were common to Illinois back then. My best friend growing up in the 70's had a stuffed one his grandmother shot while "protecting her chickens." She might very well have complained about all the rats, snakes, and gophers terrorizing their homestead too.
Lou M.

fOx'e they weren't protected untill the late 1960's....I thought you were an old hunter ?

Thanks Steve I'll look into the Elsie's

I am an old hunter there Joseph (hope you are getting ready for the annual Xmas pageant down there at the Guiding Light Mission on S. Beale St., ho ho ho).. But I am also, like Audubon, a bird watcher, and ever since my boyhood days have been fascinated by aircraft and flight. To me, all the Airborne Taloned Patrol are the most gracefull killers God ever cooked up on His drawing board of Death- Swift, Silent, Deadly.

Hawks do way far more good than harm, their main food "targets' are field mice, snakes, rodents, dead or dying gophers and woodchucks, etc.

About 20 some years ago, when I had an earlier Johnny Stewart model game caller (that one played 45 RPM recordings) we went out for fox/coyotes in early Feb- snow, cold- I had the .243Win and my pal had a M12- we set up in heavy brush on the edge of a stand of pines, facing both the wind and a slight hill about 300 yards distant, behind that, a hardwood stand- Fortunately, I had set the speaker with a longer cord about 30 feet to my right- I started the rabbit squeal- short, faint, in a heartbeat a big redtailed hawk screamed in from out of nowhere and headed right towards that speaker in a limb- I lifted the gun barrel (not to shoot the hawk) and at that motion he went into a vertical power climb and disappeared- Most impressive thing I have seen in all my years hunting/shooting, even more so then the two buck deer fighting with their antlers tangled- about 15 years ago in MT.

We have lotsa "antis" patrolling our various sites today- many of the Audubon-its hate hunting, add to that the "yo-yo" factors, the graphic shirts and bumber stickers, etc- than some of our brother "hunters" feel they must display- I wish there had just been a foto of the shotgun- not a deceased red-tailed hawk-- and the shotgun is NOT an LC Smith with that style of fore-arm release latch- Crescent, Davis, Thomas Parker, Hopkins & Allen perhaps, but But not an Elsie..

The Deeley and Edge forend latch lets out a bunch of guns like Smith, Baker, etc. Still could be an Ithaca,Davis, or other similar gun.

Oh, they had bounties on foxes, too. Just bring the ears to the Court House and get your two bucks, which was big money, then.

I suppose there are a few people who could be offended by a photo taken 80-90 years ago, but I probably wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about it.

W B,

Maybe you should crop the photo and only post the gun so as to get more specific answers to your query.

JC

Crescent.

Probably a mid to upper grade A.J. Aubrey or Meriden Fire Arms Co. Their better grades offered Krupp barrels and had slim forearms like that and the sculptured profiles to the actions.

It struck me as Aubrey or Meriden too, but then my low level example has a grip cap and this looks like POW.

Aubrey/Meridan ?

After comparing the pic with some examples, I too think it is a Aubrey/Meridian Arms sourced from Sears and the tubes of Krupp steel from Belgium. What would aide in the elimination is that if is was known that it was either a boxlock or sidelock. The Greenpeace save the whales, I mean birds, comments are unfounded, out of context and way off base. Either the raptor was cutting into the Sunday chicken dinner or he was the white meat dinner himself. Hunters didn't put the raptors on the protected list as it was DDT, and possible a few other compositions. The raptors thrive well as do other predators since there aren't many folks eating coon and opossums and if you don't have predator control on a preserve or hunting area, you aren't going to have a lot of game.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

I think Researcher got it. an Aubrey/Meriden

If you guys got that ID right from that old picture, that was amazing! You have to have 'wasted' a lot of your life looking at guns to have picked up on what that gun was...Geo

Its about as much fun trying to ID the hawk as the gun. Looks like a redtail to me too. By the way, a Red Tailed Hawk ain't an accipiter, its a buteo (looked it up)...Geo

What kind'a tree you reckon that is in the picture???

Is it a boy hawk or a girl hawk?

Sexual dimorphism in the Red-Tailed Hawk (aside from the obvious, which ain't visible in the picture) is mostly a matter of size, with the girls being bigger. That one looks pretty big to me...Geo

So George, from your hypothesis, indeed 'Size does matter' at least Hawk-wise. Like trying to "sex" Canada geese in flight, as the late George Grinnell once said, when asked about trying to only shoot the male birds, to preserve the female brood stock-"How do you tell the males from the females in a flock of honkers coming into your decoys in November?" "Well, you can't," he replied, "only they can, and if they believe in Ladies First, then so be it!" Mr. Grinnell also once said the best words of gunners wisdom re: proper leads for shooting waterfowl- "Lead 'em- if you still ain't hittin' 'em, lead 'em more, and if that don't work, then lead 'em a Hellufa lot more!"

Screw the Greenpeacers and the PETA *&^holes there Ellen- I've got no use for them, anymore than a lifetime free subscription to Martha Stewart's Jailhouse Decor memories magazine-- BUT, to know and defeat your enemy, as Patton and Frederick The Great once taught us, first you must KNOW HIM- his camoflauge, his movements, what makes him or her "Tick"-- I see the gentleman redid the foto to delete the deceased Hawk- judging with the 20-20 Hindsight, that might have been the best move in the first place, and the shotgun shown in a better close up shot for ID purposes herein--

I'll shoot on sight ANy feral cat, raccoon, possum, fox, skunk or other four footed predator (except a porcupine) I encounter, and I have put many into the ground with either rifle or shotgun. Three of the private preserves where I hunt birds in my area have me and son-in-law on "coyote death watch" and from mid-Jan through march on Private lands, we will usually kill 15 or more of those maurading bastards- keeping Martha's pet Pomerinian safe from being snatched outta a back yard by a hungry 'yote. But I will never shoot or molest or harrass any hawk or Airborne feather sentinel of death- I love to watch them in flight- soaring, we are brother hunters, and the Olde Days lords and noblemen hunted with Hawks they had trained- that to me is Death under control as much as a jet jockey nailing a NVA MIG with his F-16- a think of beauty--to each his own, but a Happy Holidays to you and yourn!!

I think all Birds of Prey were protected I believe in the late sixties by the Federal Wildlife Bureau.
The hawk is like someone already stated, an immature Red Tail, the tree looks like an Ash. The gun is not an "elsie", and I will go along with Researcher.

All Birds of Prey the female is larger and prettier than the male.

Run with the Fox, Nobleman never hunted with hawks, they were for servants. The highest in nobility used a Gyrfalcon, next a Peregrine, and so on down the line.

Fox, better yet an early Merry Christmas to you and yours. I don't think the fella would have ignited a 1 cent or 5 cent(what ever the cost circa WWI) for anything but protection or food. Anyway I don't see any pinnates, so with the leaves in the top left corner of the pic I'd say the tree is a white oak or similar oak.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

For the love of God, leave the man alone. Rather than congratulate him on having a priceless piece we would all treasure if it were OUR grandfather, you keep harping on a dead bird that was legal game at the time.

Walnut Bird - thank you for sharing.

Fox, I find it interesting that you go on a rant regarding the hawk and the anti's then go on to write something like this. Plus Fox, with those people, with that mindset, they don't look at whether it was ok to kill or not. To them nothing is ok to kill.

Tim

And on his 3rd post. I'll bet he got a good impression.

Thank you everyone for your expertise I think the Meriden identification is correct. Now all I need to do is find one to purchase.

I agree. There is good chance it is an Aubrey. Most likely it is still around and shooting. I have one with Krupp barrels. While not the highest grade of barrel offered, they were the highest grade of barrel that I have actually seen. From the description, it was a graded gun. For some more info these guns: http://damascus-barrels.com/Aubrey.html The grip caps and buttplates changed over time as did the engraving. The earlier guns were much nicer.

About the Red tail. They are still common here in Illinois. They migrate here in the spring and can really do a number on birds. Found a pheasant with head and neck missing. There was a Red tail circling over the field.

Pete

I've got to agree here, that bird was probably after the family chicken flock. Give the guy a break, I wish I had a photo like that of somebody in my family. Fox you're off base as usual, I don't know where you get all this crazy bullsh*t.

Destry

Pete:

He thinks Grandpa's had ejectors, does that help narrow the grade down?

Reminds me of the story of the Game Warden who found a hermit deep in a National forest roasting a bird on a stick. He said, "That smells good, what is it?" Hermit says, "It's my favorite, peregrine falcon." The Game Warden promptly arrested him and informed him he was likely headed to prison. The hermit begged for mercy and told him that after living alone for so long that he would die in prison. The Game Warden was moved and decided to let him off with a warning and a promise he would never kill another peregrine falcon. As he was leaving the hermit, he turned and said, "I gotta ask... what does perigrine falcon taste like?" The Hermit says, "Oh, it's more juicy than spotted owl but not as greasy as bald eagle."

I enjoyed seeing the photo, hawk and all. That was a part of our history.

Can't help with the gun though, sorry.

A. J. Aubrey

VERY similar looking gun in 1908 Sears Catalog.

My opinion- could be wrong, of course.

But I dont think so.

Regards

GKT

Walnut Bird: There are a few around, most in rough condition. Here's a higher grade example but with no mention of ejectors:

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=150324521

Norm,

Unfortunately it does not. They did not advertise ejectors until late in the game. However, first year guns have shown up with ejectors and they were mid-grade guns. Which only proves that AJ Aubrey would build anything the customer asked for. I would guess that it was a higher end model because of the description of the engraving. They only advertised 12ga and 16ga, later a 20ga. But a 20ga has shown up earlier than advertised. There at least 2 or 3 multiple gauge barrel sets floating around. One of which is supposedly a 12/16/20 set. I recently found a diary entry that mentioned a 10ga sxs Aubrey, which was never advertised.

Destry,

I have to agree about the chicken. If the bird was nesting nearby it would have torn up the family chickens. Which is perhaps the reason for the photo....

Pete

Here is yet another. Slightly higher grade with Krupp barrels. The barrels have been cut to 26"...
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=149571480

Pete

Lots more images
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/17474742

What if I posted that I'll also shoot on sight any PETA or Greenpeacers that try to interfere with my legal right to: (1) own and bear firearms, including my CCW? (2) Harrass me or my hunting buddies while afield in the legal seasons? We had some antis protesting a live (until released and airborne) anyway, pigeon tower shoot- the owner of the private property had the DNR numbnutz out- tried to close him down (sound like the Philadelphia Gun Club and their anti-pigeon shooting protesters) and he filed suit and won, and also got a restraining order against these *&^%%$# do-gooders.

I won't harm a hawk ever- they are brother hunters, and even back before they were protected, they would have been safe as houses around me-and they prey on vermin and snakes, NOT game bird nests as do crows, magpies and the afore-mentioned four footed fur bearing varmints--

As for the possible "Rednecked" supper table fare- I can't imagine eating a cooked hawk- reminds me of what Jim Rikhoff once said to his dinner hostess, who had tried to cook venison and ruined it- "Well, Jim, what does that taste like? she asked him. Old Jimbo, cut from the same Country Cloth as perhaps Terry Bradshaw, replied: "About like boiled owl!""

The antis that patrol our site here won't make the fine point of distinction that when this fot was taken, hawks were legal to kill. Instead, that foto could have been fuel for the anti-gun owning fires they are a kindlin'- and like a good dose of the clap, they will never ever stop or quit or go away. I have no "membership" decals except my DU on my truck or jeep- and when driving to a hunting club or private farm on public roads during the Fall, I never wear camo or orange caps or anything that might evidence that I am about to visit Ma nature and shoot some of her wildlife-keep a low profile says I--

Everything simply has to be put in its proper perspective. I feel sure either of my Grandads would have had no qualms about shooting a Hawk. Both were farmers & both had chickens. I don't have such a photo of either of them but if I did I likewise would have no qualms about sharing it. I likewise would have no qualms about sharing a foto of either of my G-Grandfathers in their confederate uniform with their foot atop a slain Michigan Yankee in Blue. It would be relevant to the time.
To bad-mouth a foto of this age by today's standards is strictly "IDIOTIC".

They also will make no distinction between this killing of a Hawk & the other "Vermin" you so proudly boast of. To them you Killed Something, That's It, so why would you worry about what they think for one but not the other.

Fox, When all you see is dirt around you, quit digging.

Oddly enough, I hunted on a ranch that raises decorative chickens for fly tying. It's a hawk/owl magnet. It takes 3 seasons and cold weather to raise the birds to premium cape size and condition.
He had an anti-predation permit from USFWS. The preferred method being padded leghold traps on top of poles.

Fox you continue to amaze but ceased to amuse a long time ago.

Where was this supposed protested tower pigeon shoot? I'd think something like that would get around amongst the local sporting fraternity and I never heard a word about it.

DLH

Hey you guys, lighten up on the Fox! He tends to post whatever comes to his mind (maybe without always thinking about it too long), but I don't remember any of his posts being intentionally cruel or or critical of other members, and he has started using paragraphs and puctuation marks now and I've gotten to be sort of a fan of his off the wall style. He has as much right to state his opinions as any of us...Geo

Thankee George- a true Southern g'entman rises to the cause. Fust off, my Heart has always been in Dixie- I was raised in the Queen City, and Cincinnati OH is a lot more Southern than most Damn Yankees realize. I love Southern ladies, cookin', Lynyrd Skynrd (former HS janitor in 'Bama made famous by Muscle Shoals Van Zandt boys by way o Texas) and I'll gladly piss on the grave of any Michigan bluecoat that put any Southern lady to shame or burned and pillaged their homestead during Sherman's march to Savannah-and I also won a bundle on the recent Crimson Tide show of power, and they will beat the Longhorns- That being said- y'all--

DLH- we shot pigeons this past March- Chuck told me about the PETA buttholes that tried to picket and protest one of his Tower shoots- he won in court and they have most likely learned to go and piss down someone else's back and try to tell 'em that it is raining.

Was I offended by the foto of the "Spread Eagle" deceased redtail, whether Henry or Henrietta? Hell no- I am an avid varmint hunter--and I have left many a woodchcuk hole in a summer alfala field splattered with guts, goo and blood, for the later "midnite snacking" of the Airborne Death Patrol--Owls, Hawks- we have some well fed ones around my digs in the summer months, as I am out after "pasture piggies" almost every night-

BUT- my point, and I recall all the flack RMC got here about a year ago for showing fotos of a 'yote he had shot in the ass end with his 10 bore LeFever Damascus barreled double, and although I applauded his decision and marksmanship, he caught some grief.

The PETA ass holes don't care about the fact, as well documented here, that the foto was taken way before Hawks were protected- to them that is just another sign of the stereotype Joe Six-pack redneck with the big gut, a mouthful of West VA coleslaw (Red Man) killing anything that moves- or "if it flies, it dies"--

My folks lived in the Big Queen City- but as we were all avid hunters and shooters, we had many area farmer friends- The Depression was a tough time, and I don't blame a farmer if he shot a Hawk (or a fox) to protect his brood chcickens that provided eggs and Sunday dinners- any more than I fault the "locals" near our deer camp near Lovells who take a few does untagged- those are the deer we DON'T hit on the roads at night coming back from Micelli's, and as long as they are used to feed their families and not sold to some "downState flatlanders" I have no problem at all.

Sorry (well, somewhat anyway) you misunderstood my postings, I see the gentleman who raised the question changed his foto to delete the deceased Raptor- It is just, to my mind anyway, important that we think twice about what fotos and messages we post on open forums such as we have here (and thanks again George for your comments and our apparent mutual belief in both the First as well as the Second Amendments- RWTF

Did they make hammerguns as well?
The gun in the picture looks like it has hammers to me,...but I could be wrong

CJ

Hummmmmmmm???

Post whatever comes to mind................



AW SHUT UP !!!!!!!!!!!!

CJO, yes they did make hammerguns.

This my M97 Aubrey hammergun. The M97 was the top grade for hammer guns. I purchased this from John Mann.











You can see the stipling on this late 1907 gun. Later, they dropped the stipling.

Pete

The swirled pattern on the sidelocks looks a bit like the encised oak leaves on the Ideal grade LC Smiths- not as well done of course--

Pete:

Is it my bad memory, or were the hammerless grades more finely finished than the hammer guns? Neat gun, thanks for sharing.

Norm,

I tend to agree with you. I prefer the hammerless guns. This is a M55 with chain link damascus. The M55 was the second highest grade in the early catalogs. I recently purchased a M58 with chain link damascus, but have not gotten around to taking pictures of it. Without even looking at the serial number, you can tell it is a later gun because of the engraving.



This is my M55, an earlier gun. This one has Krupp barrels.



Pete