Small 25 auto unknown origin

D

DogPyle

Inactive
I have a small .25 cal semi auto of unknown origin. I think it is a Browning but can't find it anywhere. It has the following markings only BREV 1922 and in a circular patter IAAGBR. Any ideas on the origin? Any help appreciated.

This is a picture of the gun
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Here is a bigger picture to see more detail. Once opened click on it to enalarge
Code: 
http://imgur.com/4kNMsrh
and
http://imgur.com/zOHoQCd
and
http://imgur.com/9ybASbz
and
http://imgur.com/RdwlQ52
and
http://imgur.com/BsLlmWM
and
http://imgur.com/L6apEcH
 
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Darkstar888 said:
Early FN pistol.
Click to expand...
Hold your horses there, cowboy. :) I don't think that's an actual FN logo; note that curve at the bottom of what should be the letter "F." Also, FN was rather proud of holding the innovative Browning patents, and FN Browning pistols were almost always very prominently marked as such on the slide.

I think this is a Belgian knockoff with a grip logo designed to resemble an FN logo to fool unwitting buyers. The tremendous popularity of Browning pistols in early 20th century Europe prompted all sorts of copycat products. [EDIT TO ADD: I concur with Mike Irwin that it could alternately be Spanish.]

That being said, I don't know enough about early Browning knockoffs to identify this one.
 
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I'm gonna have to correct myself and agree now with carguychris, the slide markings are unknown to me and the grip safety is oddly outside the top of the grip. The larger photo tells the tale.
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Probably identical to colt 1908 vest pocket model, I recall from reading colt focused collector web sites. I have a nickel colt made in 1919, very similar with the grip safety and thumb safety. It should be considered a browning in the sense that browning designed it and had agreements with FN and Colt's.
 
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Somewhere on it it's going to have proofmarks that will tell you the nation of origin.

Normally they're small symbols or characters in an oval.

Most logical origins for a gun like this are either Belgium or Spain.
 
Hum....

I wonder...

IAAGBR...

Industria Armi Galesi, Bresica?

Seems like a stretch, but a possibility...

Probably not. They used IAG in their grip logos.
 
If you look at the larger photo you can see on the slide what looks like a crown with another symbol under that. It is repeated under the slide too.
 
I suspect that gun came from somewhere a lot closer to Kabul than to Eibar. It has all the signs of a "Khyber pass" pistol, with markings that at best resemble European lettering. With U.S. troops being (or having been, depending on which government story you believe) in that neighborhood, a lot of those no-name guns are turning up on the market; the influx of dollars has enabled those folks to buy better tooling and turn out some pretty decent quality guns, a lot better than the old products from 50+ years ago.

Jim
 
Well this gun is kinda of old. It came from my wife's father (who passed nearly 30 years ago). So it has been around for a while. It was packed together with a Harrington & Richardson, Inc. H&R Topbreak .38 S&W Cal.
 
Any auto pistol made in Belgium in that period would have Belgian proof marks and manufacturers' markings.

Jim
 
And, it may have, Jim.
We have only seen one view.
Most Spanish guns like this use pressed horn grips. This one has hard rubber or plastic.
 
Now that I've seen more pictures, one interesting aspect is that the pistol appears to be a fairly close copy of a Browning 1910 from a functional standpoint – trigger pin in the same place, grip safety, no guide rod (i.e. recoil spring surrounds the barrel), appears to take down using a serrated front barrel bushing, and has a similar extractor design. Of course, the dust cover is a different shape, the thumb safety doesn't appear to double as a slide hold-open, and the whole pistol is obviously smaller, but there are more similarities than differences.

IOW the gunmaker scaled down a larger Browning design rather than simply copying a Baby Browning or Colt Vest Pocket, which seems to have been the more popular road to take.
 
"...would have Belgian proof marks and manufacturers' markings..." Yep and all over the thing. Everybody and his brother in the hundreds of small gun shops in Belgium prior to W.W. I made all kinds of stuff. Still had government proof marks. And the logo on the grips isn't FN's.
You'll note the pictures of the Ruby have a lot of proof marks too.
You could rummage around here. Even though it's probably not Belgian. The 'Entry to Belgian Guns' and 'My Collection'(that's friggin huge) link works, but some of the other links are dead. The 'x' pictures links work too.
http://www.littlegun.be/index.htm
Look for the 'Brev' name or something similar. May even be English. European stuff wouldn't have stamps in English.
As in Something, Something, Great Britain for the IAAGBR. Absolute WHAG though.
 
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