========= London gun makers building others' patents COMMENT ===========

Thanks for the kind words Daryl: And I agree with Parabola. Patent use number are ubiquitous. I tried to make sense of a couple...the Henry Patent rifling use numbers (Henry rifling was used by everybody) and the Purdey Patent 1104 among others.
-- The Henry patent use numbers looked to be logical for about the first five years up to about 1866 then fell apart.
-- Purdey records from that time are literally locked up.

But everybody - and I mean everybody - was using other makers' patents from ejectors to forends to whatever. .depending on the fashion of the day and the desires of the client. Reilly made this clear. You could buy his gun for cheap..Or you could add "accessories"...i.e.if in 1865 for instance you wanted a Brazier action...it would cost you £5 (a lot of money back then).

And this included building others' guns under license. W-R used to demand that such guns be sent to him for approval...one doubts other patent holders were so concerned. It would be really interesting to be able to find out the costs/profit comparisons of say
-- Reilly building a W-R under license, (One obvious advantage of Reilly building a W-R under license - He wouldn't have to wait 2 years for delivery.)
-- buying a W-R in the white directly from W-R and finishing it,
-- or just retailing a W-R.
That kind of research one fears is a bottomless pit.

Reilly was a businessman, not an innovator. He had his own workforce to keep employed. And he was not alone in making others' designs. (He was also a wholesaler and a retailer...he was the UK sole distributor for American Sharps Rifles from 1858 on).

======= London gun makers building others' patents END COMMENT =========

Last edited by Argo44; 03/02/22 11:53 PM.
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