1804 airgun advertisement

[ccdjg]

Dean, thank you for a remarkable discovery.

John, I think Störmer says that the pistols are used at a range of 50 paces [schritte = steps] with the "lower sight", and with the upper sight at 100. For the rifles, I read it as 4 shots at 300 paces then the remaining shots [of 20 - 24 from a full flask] at 200 down to 100 paces, all capable of penetrating a 1 inch thick board. He also notes a convenient barrel insert for darts is furnished with each rifle.

The air-canes are four feet total length, with the flask to be carried in a case/pouch and the barrel portion looking like a normal cane carried in the hand, with covers on bottom and top. Makes ya think of the Wastl "cane gun" [Smith, p.46] which is a typical Austrian action with removable barrel having a knob to appear as a cane.

Very interesting is the money-back warranty if the guns don't perform as claimed!

Don R.

Many thanks for putting me straight on that Don - it makes much more sense now, translating Schritte as "steps" or "paces" rather than "strokes". I couldn't make any sense of the bit about the "four bullets" and the performance of the rifles using my interpretation of Schritte but now all is clear. Funny how one word can completley throw you.
Incidentally, do you know what "Bagel" means when he he states what the canes shoot?

Your expertise in old German puts my high school German to shame!¬

[draitzer]

John, I see the word as "Nagel" [literally nails] which must mean darts...also mentioned for the insert barrel on rifles.

Die alte deutsche schrift is mighty hard on the eyes, and capital letters can be hard to discriminate. For some of the more arcane terminology, I'm fortunate to have in hand a 'German-English Technical and Engineering Dictionary' published in 1966 and liberated from a former employer years ago. Sometimes it reveals technical usage of an expression that doesn't fit with literal translation.

Don R.

[DT Fletcher]

I've read a heap of German stuff over the years and nothing else comes close to this that I can recall... in terms of an actual advertisement.

From the date, I would not be in the least surprised if a Stormer airgun looks very much to be made of English parts. Most all of the repeaters that we can actually date to that era are made with the standard English parts (Baler/Currie.) In 1804, England was still doing a great deal of business in Germany. It wasn't until 1806, sitting victorious in Berlin, that Napoleon declared his Continental System banning all English manufactured goods.

Hopefully a Stormer can be found. No matter what, it should be interesting.

Dates of airguns. If memory serves, the oldest known airgun is circa 1760, in the Kremlin; a present to Empress Elizabeth, and it is an air cane.