First Id like to go into who were the Reillys, the father Joseph Charles (J.C.) jeweler (actually silver smith) turned gun-maker and has son Edward Michael. There is a lot of speculation that the father JC and son EM were marketers rather than gun makers. Ill disagree. Surely they were engravers (there are swords and bayonets with the Reilly name on them)(you can't be a silversmith without knowing English engraving). Yet there is a consistency to the stocks, barrels, workmanship. engraving, etc. that makes a sporting Reilly to me almost instantly recognizable. They appear to only put Serial Numbers on guns they built or which were ordered at their shops; they put their name on other guns they were marketing but not numbers.

The Reilly name was very well known in the 1800s and their guns were regarded as not only well made, affordable, and beautiful but innovative. They attempted at least three times to win a British Army gun contract using other makers patents; 1853 when the Enfield was adopted, 1865 when the Snider was adopted, 1870 when the Martini Henry was adopted. (These trial dates are date markers for numbered Reilly guns per a post to follow below)and to do so he had to have had connections. Their guns were modern (though one could buy a muzzle loader in 1880 or a hammer gun in 1905); and they sold every type of gun in their shops new and used; they were one of the first London shops to sell Breech loaders.

Reilly was not anonymous. They made guns for European kings including the King of Spain, King of Portugal, King of the Netherlands and Indian Rajahs. And, they were highly regarded in the gun world. They were the sole agents for American Sharps rifles (1880), for Comblain breech loaders (1867), etc. They sold used guns. They sold Tanter revolvers and other hand guns and he put his name on all sorts of guns which passed through the shops including at least one winchester, a Navy Colt, etc.

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To illustrate, here is a quote from "Karma Express," a description of a trip on the The Deccan Odyssey, one of India's most regal luxury trains:

"Afterward, we were ferried out to the palace of the maharaja of Kolhapur, a late-Victorian pile in the syncretic Indo-Saracenic style invented by the British. It was designed by the English architect Charles Mant, although Lewis Carroll might have had a hand in it.

"The maharajas were great collectors of empire's bric-a-brac. The tomblike salons exuded a Dickensian squalor and were crammed with sambar heads and taxidermic elephants in full regalia, horse racing trophies, and stuffed fantail snipes. There were lamps with deer hooves for stands, electrically illuminated peacocks, glasses with boar-tusk handles, and beautiful English guns from the London firm of E. M. Reilly.
http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2007-04-16/karma-express


Last edited by Argo44; 07/14/18 03:54 PM.
Baluch are not Brahui, Brahui are Baluch