Why do High Standard and Iver Johnson revolvers look alike?

A

aarondhgraham

New member
Why do High Standard and Iver Johnson revolvers look alike?

Or is it just me?

I browse on Gunbroker quite a bit,,,
Always looking for that next must-have gun.

One thing I have noticed is that the High Standard and Iver Johnson revolvers look so very similar to each other.

It got me to wondering if the companies ever shared designs,,,
Or maybe even shared a designer/engineer.

I'm just curious is all.

Aarond

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They don't and they didn't.

The two companies' revolvers share only a general shape, the same as can be said about Colt and S&W, but the details and internal mechanisms are totally different.

Jim
 
I might be confusing High-Standard with Harrington $ Richards,,,

I might be confusing High-Standard with Harrington & Richards,,,
I'm mainly talking about some of the embellishments,,,
Like the curly-cue on some of the trigger guards.

I dunno,,,
Maybe I was inebriated,,,
I just got the impression that they looked very similar.

It's almost as if they had an art deco look to many of them.

Oh well,,,
I was just musing.

Aarond

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High Standard and J.C. Higgins revolvers look alike because J.C. Higgens revolvers were High Standard revolvers.

Iver Johnson and Marlin revolvers have a very similar appearance.

Bob Wright
 
T. O'Heir said:
All swing out cylinder revolvers look the same. There's only so many ways they can be made.
Click to expand...

Come now, my friend. No way you can say a Colt Police Positive and a Smith Military & Police look the same. Even in silhouette, one can easily detect the difference.

Bob Wright
 
True Bob, if the observer is you or I. But I doubt that 99 our of 100 people "on the street" would even know to call them revolvers, let alone know the make and model.

Jim
 
True Bob, if the observer is you or I. But I doubt that 99 our of 100 people "on the street" would even know to call them revolvers, let alone know the make and model.
Click to expand...
Yeah, so that's why the guy at the LGS today looked kinda shocked when I looked in the case and asked to see the model 10 which was hidden in a rack with five other revolvers!
 
True Bob, if the observer is you or I. But I doubt that 99 our of 100 people "on the street" would even know to call them revolvers, let alone know the make and model
Click to expand...
.

What you say is likely true, however, since this appeared on this forum, I assumed this was limited to those of us hereabouts. Certainly correspondents here are somwhat better informed, or at least becoming so.

Bob Wright
 
H&R / IJ

H&R and IJ are similar in looks and works, along with several other makes
that have went under. I was never interested in them enough to study up
on their patents, ect. I have owned dozens of them and have repaired many.
The only ones worth shooting are the top of the line 22s. These makes were
the ones that are referred to as "Saturday night specials "
 
Havving looked at a few thousand auctions of these revolver on gunbroker the last few months I'd say they look surprisingly similar in their "embellishments." It seems to me like they are imitating S&W revolvers a lot. Same sort of things at a lower quality.
 
Not quite true, Drm50. H&R and IJ revolvers never fell into the SNS category. The guns that were usually called "Saturday Night Specials" (the term has racist origins), were the extremely cheap and poorly made revolvers imported (mainly from Germany) during the 1950's and 1960's, until importation was effectively stopped by the provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA '68).

The best known were those by Rohm Gesellschaft (RG), a German company that had previously made blank-firing revolvers. They sold for as little as $9 and were pretty much junk.

Jim
 
RG wasn't stopped by the GCA of 1968, they were sued out of existance by Sarah Brady after John Hinckley used one to shoot Ronald Reagan and James Brady. IIRC.
 
saturday night specials

If you look at the criteria used to define a saturday night special, ie; melting point conceal ability And all of the rest, the Thompson center contender falls into that class. I have a paper around here somewhere that gives a run down on all of this.

Although, I don't know where it is at the present time.


Tom.
 
Saturday night specials

They were here before post war junk came in. Look in Flayderman's Guide to
Antique American Firearms, they are lumped together. All made in late 19th
into 20th century. You are right the imports are in this bracket too. Most of
American made stuff had steel frame, post war imports had cast alloy frames.
Fancy term for pot metal. Anyway you will find H&R and IJ at top of this list.
There were Saturday nights before 1945!
 
That is simply not true. While companies with more capital were able to improve their products while IJ and H&R were not, both companies were makers of quality guns in the early 20th century and their products were generally considered decent, though inexpensive, guns right up to the time when the original companies folded. Both companies also made shotguns, and H&R made good quality rifles, including both the M1 and M14 for the U.S. Army.

IJ especially, was an innovative company; it was IJ that brought out the first transfer bar safety for revolvers.

As to RG, the suit might have spelled the end for the company, but the ban on importation of the RG-10 and similar small revolvers was the result of GCA '68. The requirements for importation were deliberately designed to do just that, even though quality guns like the FN/Browning Model 1910 and the Walther PPK were banned under the same rules.

BTW, like many others who consider the internet the fount of all knowledge, you misunderstand the term "pot metal"; no matter what Wikipedia says, it does not refer to a zinc alloy, but to cast iron, of the kind European cook pots, and cheap Spanish handguns, were made from.

Jim
 
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