unknown gun

D

Dennis6474

New member
I have what appears to be .32 target pistol. There is no manufacturer on the gun anywhere. There is a number "1" stamped on every part. The barrel, trigger guard etc. There are two stamping of what might be a shield on top of the barrel and receiver. The trigger is very light is what leads me to think it is a target gun.

I have had many guesses from gun maker's toy to prototype.

I know the pictures may not allow identification but let me know and I will try for some more or point me in a direction.
 

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These turn up every once in a while.
It is a European target pistol. Action is somewhat like the Stevens.
Caliber is probably 6mm rimfire. It would probably shoot a .22 CB cap ok but I would not push it with full power .22s.

The 1911 ALFA (Adolph Frank, Hamburg, Germany) catalog shows the type for 42 Marks. This was a good deal of money at the time.
 
Most likely a parlor gun.

That used to be a thing -- shooting in the house into a dedicated backstop you set up.

Very genteel.
 
Not a parlor gun, it is a European type single shot target firearm of a type that was popular in the first half of the 20th century.. Somewhere on that gun are proof marks denoting the country of origin. The .32 S&W was a popular target round both here and in Europe.
 
"Not a parlor gun..."

Maybe it was for someone who had a BIG parlor. :p

I assumed that it was going to be rimfire, that that was a pretty common form for a rimfire.

But, with the information that it's likely a centerfire, yeah. Target pistol.
 
Going to try to draw a picture of shield. It is not clear enough or large enough for a photo with my equipment.

Do these have any value at all?
 
Value depends on the maker, condition, and caliber. An oddball European rimfire caliber may not be as desireable as an old American centerfire caliber.
 
The firing pin appears to be in the standing breech; the screw on the top likely holds it in.

The number 1 could mean a prototype or experimental, but more than likely is a batch number. In most small European factories, guns were made in "batches" of 100 or so; they were hand fitted and assembled, then taken apart, the parts numbered (e.g., 1-100), hardened, finished, and re-assembled. The numbers were used to make sure the fitted parts were re-assembled into the same gun. So there would have been many number 1's, an equal number of 2's and so on as long as production continued.

Jim
 
If bigger than .22/6mm it might be .32 S&W, .32 S&W Long or it might be .320 or .320 Long, European versions (ancestors?) of .32 Colt Short and Long.
 
The whole thing just LOOKS European!

Very nice lines on the pistol. I hope you'll press the course and see what it is chambered for. If it's nothing too obscure, it might be fun to shoot it once in a while.
 
Mapsjanhere is right, but that list might antedate the NRA Museum or at least their web site. Whoever edited the document inadvertently included some Belgian proof marks under the British section. I once had a "discussion" with a gentleman who just couldn't accept a simple error and had concocted a convoluted "explanation" involving a secret British proof house in Belgium to prove arms for clandestine use in the British empire.

(The marks on the second page, with the proof house shown as Liege, are the Belgian ones; they belong in the Belgian section.)

Jim
 
I'm not 100% sure, but I think that list originally came from either Blue Book of Gun Values or a Flayderman's guide.

You can see the sequential page numbers at the top of each page. Had NRA's museum staff put that together in house for publication on the web, it wouldn't have those markings.
 
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