Semiauto pistol
1938 Swedish Army Trials Luger
Lot 524 in the September 2019 RIA auction. Sweden tested the Luger in 1904, along with all the major semiauto pistols available at the time. The Luger was found to be the most accurate gun […]
Handgun
Needlefire
Dreyse Model 1835 Needlefire Breechloading Pistol
Lot 408 in the September 2019 RIA auction. Johann Nicolaus Dreyse, later promoted to the aristocracy as Nicolaus von Dreyse, designed the first mainstream military breechloading rifle. His rifle was adopted by Prussia and changed […]
Antiques
Marston 3-Barrel Selectable Pocket Derringer
Lot 1173 in the September 2019 RIA auction. William Marston was born in the UK in 1822 and emigrated to the US in the 1830s with his father, who was a gun smith. William became […]
Revolver
Scheintod Revolver: A German Tear Gas Pepperbox
Lot 3129 in the September 2019 RIA auction. First appearing in the decade of so before World War One, the Scheintod guns were designed to fire either flash or irritant cartridges, not lethal projectiles. The […]
Percussion
Freeman’s Patent Revolver
Lot 259 in the September 2019 RIA auction. Patented by Austin H. Freeman in 1862, 2000 of these revolvers were manufactured by Hoard’s Armory in Watertown New York in 1863 and 1864. None were purchased […]
Prototype
P7A13: H&K’s Entry into the US XM9 Pistol Trials
The US held three series of pistol trials beginning in the late 1970s to find a replacement for the venerable M1911 handgun. H&K was a participant in all three – in the first the entered […]
Prototype
1885 Dimancea: A Revolver With Sprockets
Patented in 1885 by Romanian military officer Haralamb Dimancea, this revolver is actually a true hammerless design. Instead of simply shrouding a hammer inside the frame, Dimancea used a pair of rotating sprockets to cock […]
Semiauto pistol
Belgian GP35: The First Military Browning High Power
The Grande Puissance – High Power – was John Browning’s last firearms design. In fact, he only began the design; it was taken to completion by his protege Dieudonné Saive at FN in Belgium. It […]
Semiauto pistol
SIG Chylewski: One-Handed Vest Pocket Automatic
Designed by Witold Chylewski, this was only the second pistol manufactured by SIG (the first being the 6.5mm blow-forward 1894 MAnnlicher design). It was patented prior to WW1, but only after the war was Chylewski […]
Semiauto pistol
Abercrombie & Fitch Luger
Back before World War One, when Abercrombie & Fitch was still a true sporting goods company catering to the likes of Joseph Steinbeck and Theodore Roosevelt, they decided to offer Luger pistols for sale. This […]