Julius Will Airguns

[ptdunk]

Thanks to PaulK62 for starting this thread, great to hear how he came across those lovely examples.

Some info from the arms expert in the Zella Mehlis museum in Germany:

Julius Will (1854-1928) was born in Zella st. Blasii (Zella Mehlis) and was the older brother of Oscar Will (1861-1926)
It's assumed they both started working at their fathers company (Ernst Leo Will). Julius set up his own company in Zella st. Blasii in 1884 (company name unknown)
Oscar Will took over his father's company in 1888 and named it 'Venus Waffenwerk'.

Although they had seperate companys it seems they worked together on some projects, John Griffiths mentions a Kurbelspanner pistol that had the hidden Julius Will 'JW' mark, but the volute springs had Oscar Will's 'OW' mark so perhaps they collaborated.

Here are some pictures of a Julius Will Kurbelspanner which someone asked me to help identify, as you can see it has the same engraving as the Bugelspanner, so it's reasonable to assume this is a feature of the Julius Will guns. It's great to know we have a verified Julius Will Kurbelspanner pistol, as well as Kubelspanner and Bugelspanner long arms.



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The engraving is very refined, I wonder if Julius did this himself?

Interestingly they also had two brothers who moved to the U.S:
Both born in Zella st Blassi/Zella Mehlis: Adalbert in 1856, and Karl in 1848. I bet they got involved in airguns somehow, it would be amazing to find any record of them in the U.S

There was also a previously unknown brother who made gallery airguns on the other side of Germany. I discovered that but that's a whole story in itself, which I'll share a bit later

There are some pictures of airguns referred to as Julius Will airguns but without pictures of any markings so I don't think it's useful to include them.
I hope the new owner of the Kurbelspanner pistol recently sold in the UK can find some stamps under the barrel flat, I bet that's a Julius Will too.

If anyone else has pictures of any Julius Will marked airguns please add them to this thread.

Cheers,
Matt