Two British pocket revolvers... forerunner of the J frame?

[Jäger]

I have no idea what they are.  My grandfather came back from WWI with them, having spent some time in England after being wounded in the trenches.  He was an engineer on steam locomotives before heading off to war and returned to that for a while before moving and settling where I was born and grew up, to become a machinist for a mining company.  It was pretty common for engineers back then to carry a revolver somewhere, and perhaps that was what he had in mind when he picked up these two pocket pistols in his travels.

I assume they are British made due to the proof marks with the King's crown among them, but other than that they have no markings whatsoever.  As he never went back overseas after returning home in 1918, I assume their date of manufacture would be sometime in the early 1900s.  No ammunition came with them - Dad said Grandpop kept the revolvers but got rid of the ammunition for them when his two younger siblings were hitting their exploratory years.  So I don't even know what the chambering for them is, although I suspect it is .32 something or other, as a 7.65 bullet will drop into the cylinder chambers but not quite clear the chamber mouth.

[sistema1927]

Even with the British proofs I am guessing that the 1st one is Spanish and the 2nd is French or Belgian. (But what do I know?)

[sistema1927]

BTW, my Grandfather was probably just a little younger than yours. He didn't serve in WWI, but instead spent 1919-1931 in the Essex Regiment, most of that in "India" at the Khyber Pass. I remember his telling me that he once had to use his MkIII* SMLE to dispatch a cobra in the outdoor privy.

[Jäger]

Jun 22, 2017 20:56:44 GMT -5 sistema1927 said:

Even with the British proofs I am guessing that the 1st one is Spanish and the 2nd is French or Belgian. (But what do I know?)

Anything's possible; that's a century ago.  I assumed they were British manufacture because a) that's where he probably got them, and b) I remember seeing Brit proof marks all over them when I examined them.  As in, examined them with a macro lens on my DSLR - I can't even make them out with a magnifying glass.

I should take a bunch of pics and send them to that Gerry James or whatever the writer is who sniffs out the history of old guns.  Might even be fun to fire them again.  For my grandpop, guns were strictly about putting meat on the table, I can't ever remember him going shooting for fun.  So presumably, something was going through his head that he decided he needed two pocket handguns.  But there was a little bit of street anarchy going on with anarchists/communists in England right at the end of the war, so perhaps that was what made him think about pocket pistols.  He was a bit over 6' tall and had played rugby, lacrosse, and hockey all the way through school and up to signing up for the war, so I don't think he felt intimidated by the thought of somebody taking a swing at him.

Another family story I'll never know the answers to.

[Jäger]

Jun 22, 2017 20:59:58 GMT -5 sistema1927 said:

BTW, my Grandfather was probably just a little younger than yours. He didn't serve in WWI, but instead spent 1919-1931 in the Essex Regiment, most of that in "India" at the Khyber Pass. I remember his telling me that he once had to use his MkIII* SMLE to dispatch a cobra in the outdoor privy.

The Brits converted more than a few SMLE's to .410 shotgun over in India.  Some for prison/jail guard purposes; presumably more than a few for culling pests around the post as well.

[sistema1927]

Jun 22, 2017 21:29:39 GMT -5 Jäger said:

Jun 22, 2017 20:59:58 GMT -5 sistema1927 said:

BTW, my Grandfather was probably just a little younger than yours. He didn't serve in WWI, but instead spent 1919-1931 in the Essex Regiment, most of that in "India" at the Khyber Pass. I remember his telling me that he once had to use his MkIII* SMLE to dispatch a cobra in the outdoor privy.

The Brits converted more than a few SMLE's to .410 shotgun over in India.  Some for prison/jail guard purposes; presumably more than a few for culling pests around the post as well.

That is true, but he killed said snake with a .303. He said that he was getting ready to go on duty when nature called and he almost didn't see the cobra until too late. With trousers down around his ankles he jacked a round into the chamber and then blasted the cobra into the next world. He had some explaining to do for touching off a round in the relative security of their camp.

He told me this, and many other tales, during the year that my Dad was in Vietnam. We spent many a day wandering around the desert near El Paso, TX along with my .22 rifle. He was still a pretty good shot even though he had not handled a firearm since his discharge from British military service in 1931. He also told me that as part of the Home Guard they would have to drill with broomsticks since there weren't enough weapons to go around. He figured that had the Battle of Britain not stopped Hitler's plan to invade Britain they would probably have been armed with makeshift pikes.

I had lived in England 1960-1961 while Dad was in Korea, (crossed the Atlantic twice on the Queen Mary) and then again 1964-1968 while Dad was first assigned to the tri-partite P1127 Kestrel Evaluation Squadron (the plane that became the AV8 Harrier) and then downtown London at US Army Group UK (USAGUK). Even though I had been in close proximity with my English grandparents during those years it was during the ramblings in the desert that I really got to know my Granddad. 

One funny story before I close: Granddad drank his beer warm, and even tried that with American beer. It only took one six pack of Schlitz exploding from the heat in the garage to learn that it was probably best to keep it in the fridge.

[Jäger]

Jun 23, 2017 8:51:31 GMT -5 sistema1927 said:

I had lived in England 1960-1961 while Dad was in Korea, (crossed the Atlantic twice on the Queen Mary) and then again 1964-1968 while Dad was first assigned to the tri-partite P1127 Kestrel Evaluation Squadron (the plane that became the AV8 Harrier) and then downtown London at US Army Group UK (USAGUK). Even though I had been in close proximity with my English grandparents during those years it was during the ramblings in the desert that I really got to know my Granddad. 

One funny story before I close: Granddad drank his beer warm, and even tried that with American beer. It only took one six pack of Schlitz exploding from the heat in the garage to learn that it was probably best to keep it in the fridge.

You and Burgs should be sharing tales and artifacts from your Dads' time as pilots.  Both of you appear to be well-travelled Base Brats (God! I used to hate them).

I had a Brit roommate for a while, back in my law enforcement days.  Four of us studly young early-20's cops had rented a townhouse (aka The Fornicatorium) just a few minutes from the university.  Lots of parties and lots of university women... right in the middle of The Sexual Revolution in the '70's.  Oh, it was terrible!  There was an open room and one guys cousin from England had just immigrated to take a position with a big accounting firm.  Everybody kind of took turns buying beer.  That bastard would buy beer, and then promptly put it in the cabinet above the stove.  Just like us, he thought ice cold beer was just fine, but he also knew that none of us would touch piss-warm beer.  So when that jerk bought beer, he ended up drinking it all, and then drinking his "share" of the beer the rest of us drank.  He didn't last long before getting "uninvited" (or whatever they call getting your ass booted out today).

Anyways, his explanation of warm beer was that refrigeration came late to England compared to North America, so most people just had a small ice chest where space was reserved for stuff like meat and the beer just went on the counter.  A lot of people didn't even have that; you just walked to the butcher every day for your cuts of meat, the milkman came every morning (anybody else remember the milkman and the breadman coming every morning?), and so on.  So, if that was correct, that's where the Brit taste for room temperature beer came from.

BTW, I wasn't aware that Schlitz was considered to be beer?  Of course, if Pabst Blue Ribbon is supposed to be beer, I suppose just about anything is.

[CXM]

I agree the first is probably a Spanish copy of S&W's product, but it could also be Belgian... Belgium produced quite a lot of 'pocket' guns in the first quarter (more or less) of the last century... Spain was a major source of copies that gave S&W fits...

FWIW

Chuck

Jun 22, 2017 20:56:44 GMT -5 sistema1927 said:

Even with the British proofs I am guessing that the 1st one is Spanish and the 2nd is French or Belgian. (But what do I know?)

[Jäger]

I don't need another rabbit hole to fall down, and you two are just getting me more curious all the time about these two old revolvers.

[sistema1927]

Dad wasn't a pilot, but he was jumping out of airplanes even after I was born.

My Father-in-law was a B24 Radio Operator/Navigator during WWII. I remember chills going up and down my spine when I read his wartime diary entry that simply said "Celebrated my 1,000th hour over enemy territory today." He was flying submarine duty off the Carolina coast beginning in '39, then was sent to England where he spent a couple of years flying for "American Overseas Airways" in the civilian version of the 24 while in civilian clothes. He went back to combat flying in early 1942, and was flying with the "Carpetbaggers" in 43-44. (http://www.801492.org/index.html) Spent the rest of the war flying combat missions, including a couple with Jimmy Stewart as PIC.

Here is what he was doing a month before D-Day:


Here he is with that same crew (he is lower right looking at the picture):


He has been gone since 1986, but it was real privilege to hear him tell what little he wanted to share about his war.

[Jäger]

Another little bit of history. Thank you... I love pics and scans of military stuff from earlier times.