Tell 3 Air Pistol.

[Abasmajor]

Lovely boxed Tell 3 on offer at Holts July sale. I would expect it to make the top end of the estimate.

https://auctions.holtsauctioneers.co...8593&saletype=

Brian

[Jerry Cornelius]

I hope the winner notices it’s plus 20% as well as the usual commission

This is the second one of these I’ve seen recently where the barrel seems to be out of alignment (canted up). Is it just an optical illusion or do they really look like that?

[Mark D]

looks like a bent barrel to me, from the photo.

[Garvin]

Lovely boxed Tell 3 on offer at Holts July sale. I would expect it to make the top end of the estimate.

https://auctions.holtsauctioneers.co...8593&saletype=

Brian

I wonder if the packets of darts are original Tell accessories? The packets are pink like the instruction label inside the box lid, so they might be. If so, that would be the first time I've seen one, I think.

The Tell 3 is a wonderful pistol. A lot of the 1,000 or so made seem to have survived, judging by how many are pictured in the gallery, quite a few of them in their original boxes. Probably the impressive gold 'Tell 3' embossed on the box lid stopped people chucking it away!

[draitzer]

Interesting - this very item was posted by Mike Driskill on American Vintage Airguns late December '22, noting its owner stated on Facebook that it was found at a yard sale in Norway... but by then it had already been sent to an auction house.

To Jerry's question, I suspect the upward barrel tilt is only due to a squashed/deteriorated breech seal. The system really can't be 'triggered-off' with the barrel open.

Don R.

[Jerry Cornelius]

Good point about the breach seal, that makes sense. Though rereading the auctioneers blurb they do actually say the barrel is bent in this case.

Wasn’t it Norway that those weird 6mm Tell 3s were supposed to have come from? Or am i just making things up in my head?

[Abasmajor]

Good point about the breach seal, that makes sense. Though rereading the auctioneers blurb they do actually say the barrel is bent in this case.

Wasn’t it Norway that those weird 6mm Tell 3s were supposed to have come from? Or am i just making things up in my head?

If not a deformed breech seal, I wonder how the barrel could have become bent in an upward direction given that it is cocked in a downward direction.

Brian

[ccdjg]

Good point about the breach seal, that makes sense. Though rereading the auctioneers blurb they do actually say the barrel is bent in this case.

Wasn’t it Norway that those weird 6mm Tell 3s were supposed to have come from? Or am i just making things up in my head?

It was actually Sweden. This is the relevant thread: https://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread...fenwerk+Sweden

One theory to come out of the discussion was that somehow a bunch of Tell 3 "bitzers" might have found their way to Sweden during the War (Sweden was known to be a major market for the Tell 3 during that period), resulting in the two pistols discussed in the thread being made up with odd calibre barrels.

It is just possible that this pistol also came from the same Swedish source, and was assembled with a dodgy barrel. Subsequent migration from Sweden to Norway does not require a great stretch of the imagination.