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10655.....game changer!

After Diggory's articles, I was contacted by this New Zealand Gentleman with information about a beautiful Reilly pin-fire in extraordinary condition, a very significant gun, as follows:

I have been collecting antique guns since I was 16, starting with a flintlock which I still have. What attracted me to the Reilly was its beautiful engraving , it is in an old case which may be the same age as the gun.
I was interested to read in your article how the first extant sn for a Reilly with the name on the top rib was 11227 , this one being 10655, which I assumed might be around 1859, but may well be 1858 having looked at your research.
It is a 12 Gauge pinfire with 30" damascus barrels with much original brown still remaining. 46 1/2" overall.
Both locks have matching hammers and are in excellent working condition.
The top rib bears the inscription 'E.M.Reilly 502 New Oxford st. Londo The serial number also appears on the inside of the lock plates.

Some immediate thoughts:
1) the gun is the earliest SN'd Reilly with EM on the rib...but note..it is "E.M. Reilly" and not "E.M. Reilly & Co."
2) It is now the earliest extant Reilly center-break gun. Note the way the forearm is attached on this gun - pure Casimir Lefaucheux.
3) it has the SN on the inside of the lock-plates - never seen this before on a Reilly but no-one has ever looked.
4) with the SN on the lock-plates, no chance it was rebarrelled.
5) It is an under-lever and is clearly a copy of the Casimir Lefaucheux system!

10655 would date by my chart to Spring 1858, 18 months before "EM Reilly & Co." appeared in London newspaper ads (and the gun does not have "& Co." on the rib. There are several guns with only "Reilly" as a name on the rib with later serial numbers (see chart). But EM was clearly struggling to find a new name for the company after J.C. retired in September 1857 (see the previous posts). He did exhibit at Crystal Palace (1851) and Paris Universelle (1855) as "E.M. Reilly."

My impression was that early London breech loaders made by Lang, Reilly and Blanch followed the Lefaucheux design. And sure enough 10655 is almost a carbon copy of Lefaucheux's system.













Casimir Lefaucheux's center-break pin-fire. Lang in 1853 out and out stole the patent and changed it enough to get the British courts to toss out a lawsuit....Blanch at least was honest - he wrote that after the 1855 Paris Universelle Exposition, he sent a man to Paris to buy a Lefaucheux gun, brought it back and reverse engineered it. Looks like Reilly did too. 10655 is an important find...you just don't see many of these early English breech loaders...this goes back almost to the dawn of UK break-action guns - and French is spoken there.



Last edited by Argo44; 10/24/19 11:10 PM.
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