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 Blaufrnkisch/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.