Gun Indentification

It is not as easy to identify a German made gun as identifying a gun made in the USA, and the following articles explain why. Even the most knowledgeable collectors and gun owners are often scratching their heads and sometimes give up and can only give you an educated guess. The following hints might be of help to you.

The famous first impressions should at best encourage you to not jump to conclusions too early. The term Germanic Guns is used, but in our opinion this is not a well chosen description because what looks like a German gun to you might have been made in other countries, including the United States. When entering the words Germanic Gun into a website search engine, the question comes up “do you mean German gun?” When you enter “Germanic Weapons”, swords that the old Germans used when fighting the army of the Roman Empire come up. We prefer to call a baby by its real name, a gun that is made in Ferlach an Austrian gun, one made in Switzerland a Swiss gun and guns made by a German gunsmith in this country an American made gun.

The inscriptions on the top rib or the barrels might confirm that the gun was made in Germany when the name of a town in Germany follows the first name. When in doubt, enter the town into a web-site search engine and you will usually find some information about the location of the town. The first and last names could be that of a maker, a dealer, a gun factory, a wholesaler, an importer or an exporter. The following articles with the title “Who made all those German Guns” and a “Gun maker -Gunsmith or Dealer?” are well worth reading,

Proof Marks are usually found on the underside of the barrels, and if a gun has German proof marks and was made in 1892 or later, you know that the gun was proof tested in Germany. This is no assurance however, that all components of the guns where made in Germany, The gun making center in Liege in Belgium was known for the good quality of their shotgun barrels that were used by gun makers in other countries. You might want to print out the list of German proof marks that follows for reference when you encounter a German gun.

Additional questions are covered in the articles that follow. The list of German gun makers and dealers in section 5 will get much longer as we find the time to add them to the list.

We have seen many guns over the years with names not known to us, especially those that were made late in the 19th Century or early in the 20th century. Many times we don’t know whether it is the name of a maker or the name of the seller. Information is very hard to find, and those of you who have tried to research their family history will know of the difficulties.

It was the tradition of the period, that gun shops all over the country would order guns from a maker, mostly in Suhl and Zella-Mehlis and vicinity, and ask him to engrave their name and the name of their town on the gun. It can usually be found on the top rib or on the barrels on both sides of the rib in front of the action.

The same thing was done when guns were ordered by wholesale distributors, exporters or by importers in the United States. Good examples of this are guns marked with the names GECO, AKAH, Kettner in Germany and Charles Daly, Abercrombie & Fitch or Griffin & Howe in the U.S. This custom is still with us. For the most popular and desirable guns, like the “Prussian Dalys” we can usually determine who made the gun. But even this can be difficult.

What can we tell by other markings or features? You first want to look for a maker’s trade mark or initials. If found you can try to find the same one in Section 5, the lists of gun makers and dealers.  Then you can study the proof marks that follow which can confirm that the gun was made in Germany, that it was proofed in a certain proof house and the period these proof marks were in use.

The experienced collector can tell by the style of the action or other features, where and by whom the gun was most likely made. Sometimes we can identify makers by the engraving because it is unique like a signature. This identification must be left to the serious collector or engraver with historic interest. We are lucky in that we have found an engraver in Suhl who is also a collector of information about engravers.

So, be patient in trying to find answers to your questions. We are building this archive and get new information all the time. But it is a slow process that will take years and some information will never be found. World War II, the occupation of the eastern part of Germany by the Russians and a Communist Government contributed to the loss of most records in that part of the country.

The first gunsmith in Germany and other countries was the village or town blacksmith, and to set himself apart from those who mostly shoed horses, he called himself a gunsmith. As ways were found to mine iron ore, refine it and work with it and turn regular iron into steel, and as more and more iron mining took place, the location where the iron ore, waterpower and wood for smelting the iron were available in abundance, gunsmiths were attracted to these locations. The first available document about Suhl, the former gunmaking center of Germany, informs the reader that the town had iron mines and iron hammers that ran on water power.

This mode of operation lasted for quite a few centuries, but as the so called Industrial Revolution began and took hold in the middle of the 19th. Century, more and more gunmakers moved to these gunmaking centers like Suhl and Zella-Mehlis in Germany, Ferlach in Austria and Liege in Belgium.

When it comes to guns that can unquestionably be classified as antiques, there is usually no doubt that the name on the gun is that of the maker. But on guns made during the 19th Century, things began to change. In GGCA Journal #31 is a beautiful pin fire side-by-side shotgun with two names, one on the barrels and another on the backaction side locks. We still don’t know for sure who made the gun and whether the second name was possibly that of the engraver, the barrel maker or the lock maker.

When we get inquiries about muzzle loading guns or early breech loading guns, our first source of information is usually Der Neue Stöckel by Heer, three books that are written in German and are now out of print. They can perhaps be found at book dealers who deal in used gun related books. When we find the first and last name on a gun in this book, we take it for granted, that he was indeed the maker of the gun. Since the book ends with the year 1900, however, the same man could have made guns after 1900 or found it more and more advisable to do less in his own shop and sell guns by makers in the gunmaking centers. When placing his order he could request that his name will be engraved on the gun or even be inlayed in precious metals.

This is the problem we face when you ask us about the maker of your gun. If the gun was made during the transition period in the mid 1800s, we often can’t be sure. If it is known that a gunmaker by this name was located in a known gun making center, it is likely that he was really a gun maker but there are always exceptions to this rule. As an example we can mention the gunmaker Reeb in the German city Bonn. This town was definitely not a gun making center and we do not know of another gunmaker who was located there, but we now have proof that he was indeed a gunmaker but also had guns made in Suhl, the former gunmaking center of Germany.

So, don’t be too disappointed if you can’t find a definite answer on who made your gun.

An article about gun making centers can be found in About The Guns

Unraveling the history of a German sporting gun or rifle is often a difficult proposition.  With the exception of a few larger makers like J.P.Sauer, Merkel and Krieghoff, most records were lost during the wars and only the guns themselves offer testimony to the history, workmanship and artistry of German gunsmiths.

Many times collectors, upon scrutinizing their European guns, find small marks, most of the time some letters in any sort of script, sometimes surrounded by circles, rectangles and so on. Obviously they are not part of the proof marks or known registered trade marks. Instead, they are individual stamps by individual craftsmen like barrel makers, actioners and other specialists working in the gun trade. Most serious collectors desperately try to find out which person stands behind those tiny letters, but in most cases this proves to be very difficult. Remember: “Who made what for whom?” is one of the best kept secrets of the European gun trade!

Take; for instance the famous “Gunmaker Lindner of Suhl”. He is famous in America because many of the finest German guns sold by Charles Daly are signed with his name or trademark, but his name is virtually unknown in Germany or even in Suhl, except to local historians, who merely know his address and life span. Lindner probably never made a complete gun himself, but he employed a few good men and farmed out the work to make guns to his or Chas. Daly’s specifications to the finest craftsmen working in the Suhl gun trade.

Of course he wanted those craftsmen to mark their work in some way so that he could track work not meeting the prescribed standards, but after he had accepted a gun for export, the purpose of those markings ended! Lindner most likely was not interested in letting anyone else, especially not Charles Daly, know who actually made those fine guns he provided!

This practice does not apply to Lindner alone, but this was the way the European gun trade in Suhl, Birmingham, Liege, Ferlach and so on worked. Remember all those misrepresented “Guild Guns”, made by the trade for the countless gun dealers, with a space on the top rib left blank to bear the dealer’s name? If that dealer did not bother to have his name engraved, the gun remained nameless, even if actually made by famous makers.

Russel Wilkins of Holland & Holland in London once reported that, on visiting the Birmingham gun quarters in the 1960s, that he met a craftsman who occupied an attic accessible only through a trapdoor, who made nothing but the trigger guards for all the British gun makers. Or, as I found out 30 years ago, all the scope mounts used on Austrian guns made in Ferlach, were made, fitted and mounted by a single specialized shop in town. For these special markings were not necessary. As you see by now, those tiny marks served only as the communication between participants of the gun trade. Their purpose was more to obscure relations to outsiders than to publish them. Some craftsmen were using different stamps for their own work and work done for others. Other stamps were used by several men over time. Those who look for serious documentation will not spend much time on these marks anymore, because they were neither registered nor documented otherwise. Relating one of them to a certain man is often pure speculation or guesswork, and that is not always satisfactory.

German Guild Guns – What are they?

There is no such thing as a German Guild Gun!

When those who claim to know a lot about German guns encounter a gun that does not have a maker’s name on it, they often call it a Guild Gun. This sounds a whole lot better than admitting that they don’t know who made it.

German craftsmen belong to Guilds even today and have for hundreds of years. Guilds were initially sponsored by the reigning potentate in a certain region for the promotion of good craftsmanship that gave buyers a certain guarantee that they were dealing with knowledgeable professionals that were well trained. The Guilds established apprenticeships that had to be served under a master for a certain number of years. The Lehrling (apprentice) had to present a sample of his work to a group of Meister (masters) who would also question him. If they approved of what they saw and heard, the apprentice became a Geselle(journeyman). After working for five years and successfully completing part-time courses in a technical school, he could present his Meisterstück (masterpiece) to another group of masters who could then bestow on him the title Meister. Within the Guilds were groups of the different gun making occupations, likeActioners, Stock Makers, Lock Makers, Engravers, etc.

Most of the bigger gun factories had special departments for training the apprentices, but it was still up to the Guild Masters to do the final testing and giving the final approval. These Guild titles and positions do not tell us anything about the business they worked in. They could work on their own in a one man shop or in a factory with hundreds of craftsmen. Even today every gun shop or gun store must be owned by a master gunsmith or a master gunsmith must be employed. And there are no exceptions to these rules!

So, there is no such thing as a “Guild Gun” and there was formerly no law that required that every gun had to have the name of the maker on it. As a matter of fact, many guns were ordered by dealers in big cities or smaller towns from a gun maker in a gun making center like Suhl, with the specific request to engrave the name of the retail dealer on the gun. Engravers were formerly not allowed to sign their work. Fortunately, this is now changing in Germany also.

You may now better understand that even those who know a lot about German or Austrian guns often can’t identify the maker. Some just try to make you happy and call it a “Guild Gun”. A better name for all these unmarked guns, if needed, might be “Trade Gun”. Most German guns are of very good quality, but there are always exceptions to the rule and the proof marks might tell us that a gun was sold in Germany but made in Belgium. Let the buyer beware and get advice from those who really know! But they are hard to find and they will readily admit that they know very little.

German Gun Inscriptions and related terms

The titles in front of the names were given to reputable businesses for payment of a fee, but did not necessarily relate to the quality or the make of their guns.

Information about proof marks and production marks can be found in other articles.