Since I seem to be the most prolific poster here where BP stuff is concerned, it occurred to me that I might from time to time post the odd Tint and Hip from my more than half a century experience of burning the black smelly stuff.

Many of us here, myself excluded, have one or more examples made by the Italian makers - the now-defunct Armi San Marco [ASM], Pietta, Uberti, Pedersoli, Chiappa or Euroarms, Navy Arms CVA and so on. There are others, of course, but that'll do for a start. Apart from the usual proof marks - GVT - Gardone Val Trompia [GVT], there are often a scad of other marks too. PV means Black powder - Pulvero Nero - and BLACK POWDER ONLY means waht it says. There is also a cryptic date code, and that is the subject of this morning's 'Handy Tint & Hip'.

As our guns will have been made for export, the date code will ve enclosed in a little square outline, and the codes conssit of Roman numerals [what else?] and capital letters of the alphabet.

I won't bother you with date codes from before 1975, though, as you are unlikely to find anything that old, sooooooooooooooo, here we go -

AA - 1975
AB - 1976
AC -1977
AD - 1978
AE - 1979
AF - 1980
AH - 1981
AI - 1982
AL - 1983
AM - 1984
AN - 1985
AP - 1986
AS - 1987
AT - 1988
AU - 1989
AZ - 1990
BA - 1991
BB - 1992
BC - 1993
BD - 1994
BF - 1995
BH - 1996
BI - 1997
BL - 1998
BM - 1999
BN - 2000
BP - 2001
BS - 2002
BT - 2003
BU - 2004
BZ - 2005
CA - 2006
CB - 2007
CC - 2008 etc.

tac