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Sidelock
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So sad to learn of his passing & state of our beloved pastime/infatuation.

Cheers,

Raimey
rse

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for felix smile




Last edited by skeettx; 02/12/18 04:55 PM.

USAF RET 1971-95 [Linked Image from jpgbox.com]
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felix Offline OP
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The pair of Ribbentrop Springer's Nr. 10365/10366
I have been looking today a German TV session on the career of the
Nazi-grandee Ribbentrop, ambassador to London , secretary of state,
the first one to be hanged after the Nuremberg trials.
Its told that as ambassador to London he enjoyed his stay there and used Purdeys and Hollands as household items.
He had a hunting estate in Germany and is featuring in the
TV session with a gun in his hands.....
....
H. Riedl one of the 1980's/1990's "Tattendorf-gang" of
hunters/collectors passed away in 5/1997, failing to realize
his already ordered Africa-hunting-trip.
His heritage, a pair of 12-bore self-opener Springer's and
a pair of 16-bore Springer's.
The records of Springer's quote as customer for the 16-bores
"Auswärtiges Amt / Berlin".
The gossip with collectors has been this is the pair
of Ribbentrop Springer's.
I am curious on such statements as it is often just used
to pop-up the value of a merchandise. ("Fetichism-factor")
Given the info from this TV session this could have some
substance and be correct.
The 12-bores landed with an Austrian hunter with ad-business
background, the guns today with his widow and her
partner completed by a genuine Springer cartridge magazine
as present.
B. Lampl , retired manager of the previous Springer-antique
shop, told me that he had sold the pair of 16-bores
to Ukrain.
So what a paradoxon of history, a Vienna-best pair of guns,
once owned by a Nazi-grandee ,finally owned by a hunter/
collector in one of the invaded countries of WW II.
...
Felix Neuberger
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/53564
Photo courtesy Joh. Springer's Erben

Last edited by felix; 03/03/18 12:14 PM.
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Lovely effort there Felix. I always heavily fancy the tid-bits / pieces of info associated w/ the history of a sporting arm.

Cheers,

Raimey
rse

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felix Offline OP
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.. Genesis of a pair of Joseph Lang (built 1973) and associated lessons learned ..
A friend of mine who had a pair of Lang joined me on a duck shoot
in western Hungary in the late 1980's. He had the left peg to me
which turned out to be a very hot and difficult peg.
The ducks came down in a S-curve before splashing into the water.
He banged and banged and all of a sudden his banging ceased.
After the drive I asked him why he stopped shooting despite the
ducks still coming in. He told me that his Lang gun went out
of order. The hook holding the forepart was loose.
He was using a handguard - a piece of leather covered
steel-sheet - plus gloves. He did not realize that the
barrels became so hot that the soldering melted.
Lesson learned: No handguard and at best thin gloves -
from carpincho or roe-deer - to know when its too hot to continue
and/or change to another gun.
He had the loose hook fixed and moved upwards to the next London tier, buying a pair of Boss single trigger at Boss/London.
An Austrian cabinetmaker bought the pair for 20 KE.
The new owner, a fast and proficient shot, properly clad
in a hunting suit by an English tailor, but a man with
sometimes hair-trigger temper.
A harmless dispute of him with an artisan for a peanut-amount
escalated and he used a word/sentence not very well thought-out.
A non-involved retired policeman considered his sermo a
threat and filed a denunciation.
Police visited him and confiscated all his guns and rifles.
He ordered a lawyer to appeal and went up the levels up to
the European court. All in vain.
An expert from the police valued the confiscated stuff and
he got a refund of 15 KE for the Lang pair, his gun license
gone.
(So no WW II alike German/Russian/American confiscation).
Lesson learned: If you are a gunowner in a country
without a 2nd Amendment, your voice should be calm,
the language you choose kind and gentle, like the one
from a retired Alt-Philologe.
That has been 5 years ago and I have been wondering what has
happened to the Lang pair, as this is not a daily commodity
here.
The pair appeared now in a local auction, normally dealing
in the bottom tier of the market.
Start price 3,4 KE, hammer price 4 KE, with the vendors commission 3,2 KE for the vendor, i.e. police HQ.
So what started with 20, then down to 15 and now down to 3,2.
One may ask what happened to the significant deltas of this
downwards spiral..
Simple answer .. "Gone with the wind", like asset-based-securities of Lehmann-brothers or the Madoff-papers or
more recentyl here the Viennese Wienwert-papers.
Thus a pair London-Best reduced to a metallic brick-and-mortar,
sic transit gloria mundi...
The admin ordered him a 5-year calm-down period, after which he
could now once more apply for a gun/hunting license.
When asking him if he will do it, his answer has been NO, the
area he lives and hunted, once a haven for small game - even
hosting before WW II British crown prince Edward (later shortterm
king) - is void of game.
....
Felix Neuberger
(I did NOT buy the Lang pair)

Last edited by felix; 03/12/18 02:15 PM.
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A very interesting story! And: Lesson learned...! Thanks!

Wolfgang

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felix Offline OP
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...
Addendum to "lesson learned"..
The gun which preceeded the Lang pair of my late friend has been
a J. Nowotny/Prague. I found and bought it in the shop in Narodni Street in 1980. A 16/65 bore, sidelock ejector, a beauty of a
Prague-Best gun with gorgeous engraving and a blond/black
marbled stock, the nr. 3 of a trio.The shopmanager disclosed me
the vendor, I visited him in the country side. A young man who
told me that the gun is from his late father and he has no idea
on the whereabouts of the pairing 2 and 3.
When I moved to Paris in 1982 I put it on the market and it landed
at this my friend, the start of a life-long friendship, which
ended 3 years ago with his passing away.
He has been a novice-hunter and the Nowotny his first best-grade
one.
As a habit with many novice-hunters, he was keen to extend/
improve on the killing power/range of the gun.
He moved to/tried the 2 3/4 cartridge, with fatal effect.
The action withstood it but the choke bulged.
A gunsmith cut the bulged barrel-part and and the gun was sold.
Lesson learned: Do not extend/enlarge the chamber.
The destruction of this Nowotny barrel has confirmed me in
my ultra-orthodox position of an anti-elongation apostle,
in contrast to the prevailing mainstream to elongate to the
more cosily available 2 3/4 cartridge.
The allmighty Purdey used for their 2 3/4 chambered guns
a wider action than for the 2 1/2.
There has been more game bagged with the 2 1/2 ubiquitous
Eley-Grand-Prix type of cartridge than with anyting else -
at least in Europe.
What has been found out by pre-WW II generations of gun makers
to be the best implementation should not be ruined by
quasi-DIY modifications.
Even if the gun passes proof on the chamber extension and the
choke does not bulge, it will become loose and off the face
sooner or later.
Nick Holt has in his march auction a pair of leightweight
Purdey's of 2,83 kg and solid barrelmeasurements.
I have shot for a couple of years a 2,78 kg 27" Purdey
without undue recoil and with "perfect" killing/power.
Probably just perfect shot pattern/distribution.
These Purdey-folks knew how to build shotguns.
It would be complete nonsense to extend such guns to
2 3/4.
...
There is matter which is worse than extending chamber length
in a shotgun.
It is called converting a vintage rifle calibre to a more cosily
available current rifle calibre.
Once more its Nick Holt who has in his march auction a couple
of English double bore rifles of Indian provenance .
I believe the ancestors of the English gunmakers will rotate
in their graves when realizing that items of
Anglo/Indian world rifle cultural heritage have been
mutilated to Teutonic calibres of 7x65R or 9,3x74R.
Converted by Ferlach-gurus and prooved in London to create
the "Schimäre" of genuine London-work.
Why then at all ?
In the sermo of a London dealer "I can sell a 9,3x74R for
1 KGBP higher than with the original English vintage
calibre". In German just "Schnöder Mammon".
What is still missing in this undertaking is to fit
the still operational Maharaja-Rolls-Royce-Shooting-Brake
with BMW car-tyres.
I am aware that my orthodox attitude may be a
provocation to the dealer-folks, who make a living
on buying and selling vintage guns and rifles.
...
Felix Neubeger

Last edited by felix; 03/17/18 01:20 PM.
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Felix,

I was fortunate enough to come upon SN 2445 double rifle in 8x75R and I was wondering if peter made more than one label? It has a slightly different engraving pattern and would be happy to send photos.

Rick Hill


Rick Hill
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felix Offline OP
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To Gankai/Rick Hill:
According Gundigest 8x75R has been introduced around 1910,
so this could be original barrel.
Re label:
I can offer you
1. Black/white copy of above repro label on thick paper
2. Colour copy of above repro label in red on thick paper.
If you send me your address via PM I will mail them to you.
Kind regards
Felix Neuberger

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felix Offline OP
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A J. Nowotny hammer gun, bar-in-wood, serial nr. 7922
...
If you think you know it all or you have seen it all
you are probably wrong.
An incidental inquiry re a Nowotny hammer gun to a family member of the house of J.Springer ended in my e-mail box. Their workshop
had restocked , refurbished and reproofed a "grandfathers
gun with broken stock" years ago.
The present gun-owner whose family has gone through this whole endeavour wanted to know if there is any info available on it.
I am reluctant to comment on wallhangers or other obsolete stuff , but in this case the combination of a vintage Nowotny
hammer gun with the owners profile -ex Internet - of an Merlot winemaker in the Carnuntum wineregion rose my interest.
Merlot is within Austria's ubiquitous Blaufränkisch/Zweigelt
a rather rare grape.
Carnuntum has been during Roman times the metropolis of their
Pannonia province and their bastion against the
marauding tribes from the north of the danube, the "terra
barbarica".
I visited the owner, a well established winemaker and
had all my Nowotny papers with me.
The first surprise it had Vienna (re)proof for 12/70
from march 1987 and what looked to me like an English preproof
but no original proof-year. And unbelievable T.Kilby barrel
from Sir J. Whitworth fluid pressed steel.
This may explain why it survived its Nitro proof.
As there is no previous local year-proof, it was apparently made
before the introduction of year-mark-proofs.
...
If you look on the Austrian reproof code it seems to be
NIY - coding is MYY - but as there is no letter I ("India")
for year thus this second letter must be T("Tango")
and not I
....
Its nr. 3 of a trio ( or more ), nice/flowing lines of the sculpting of the system and well executed engraving.
Missing the original stock with ev. crest or other indication,
I wanted to clarify if there is a chance to find out
provenance and production year.
There are J. Nowotny descendants, but they do not have any
customer/order records.
Then there remain 2 options.
1. Intrapolating the Kilby barrel serial number back from 2
known from later times results in year 1892. This is a rather vague exercise given the short interval (1913,1929) of the known Kilby dates.
2.Intrapolating the Nowotny serial nr. from 2 known from
later times results in year of production 1887.
The second intrapolation is the one into which I
have more confidence given its interval 1899/1928.
.....
Here are a couple of photos to show this very early example of
a Kilby/Whitworth/Nowotny coproduction in pre-pre-pre-brexit
times.
My judgement its an English made hammer gun in the
white - given its Kilby/Whitworth barrels, the
English preproof, the English name for Prague on
the barrel-rib - and engraved/stocked and
finished in Prague given the Czech name "v Praze" on the
bar of the action.
..
Just in case you happen to have the nr. 1 or 2 of this trio
(or nr. 4 etc if more) dont hesitate to show up it would
be worthwile to try these guns in Zidlochovice or in one
of the other Czech high volume pheasants shoots.
That is it where these guns made their first appearance.
Weidmannsheil and Lovu Zdar
Felix Neuberger
...
Gunphotos
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54398
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54399
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54400
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54401
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54402
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54403
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54404
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54405
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54406
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54407
Photos ex J. Nowotny catalogue 1912
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54408
This is the model in the 1912 catalogue which comes
nearest to the gun featuring above.
the headline translates to "Prague manual work",
the last line has the Kilby-barrel option.
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54409
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54410
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54412

Last edited by felix; 06/17/18 07:28 AM.
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