A mystery pistol masterpiece of design - but who made it?

[trajectory]

In my opinion this is one of the most interesting & intrigueing threads for a goodly while. There are many good points raised & although we may not know for certain, at the moment any rate, whose design this is or who made it makes for a fascinating read.
Garvins point about the trigger guard spring & cocking lever arrangement being such that they might not infringe other patents seems valid to me.
Was it a BSA prototype? I really don't know but if it was then I wonder why it never went into production. Even if it wasn't BSA who oversaw the design & the making of this example I still wonder why it didn't get marketed. Was the competition too well established, did the outbreak of WW2 effect it, was it deemed too tricky to make, would the manufacturing cost be too high & consequently the selling price be too high too?
As an aside I know not all speculative ideas/items get patented, there are various reasons & sometimes it's because it attracts attention to what a company is looking at. Not saying this is the case with this but maybe it's a possibility. Either way it's a bit of a shame this didn't get into production, I'd have been on the look out for one if it did. Such a neat design, cleverly thought out, I really like it & am quite taken with it.

[Jerry Cornelius]

.
Garvins point about the trigger guard spring & cocking lever arrangement being such that they might not infringe other patents seems valid to me.

Yes, I agree that was a good point, and might tend to support a view that it was born in a factory somewhere in the UK

I guess we’ll never know but it’s certainly a very interesting item.

[ccdjg]

Yes, I agree that was a good point, and might tend to support a view that it was born in a factory somewhere in the UK

I guess we’ll never know but it’s certainly a very interesting item.

Yes, Danny's point fits with the pistol being made pre-war, when the 1925 Tell 2 patent was still active. We know that after the war the Tell 2 patent was no longer relevant, as evidenced by the appearance of the Acvoke and Thunderbolt Junior, heavily pinching the Tell 2 design with impunity.

I have been giving more thought about who, in the 1920-30’s period was best placed to come up with the design of this mystery pistol. If you think about it, only two gunmakers in the UK up to the outbreak of World War 2 had ever considered a concentric pistol design: George Norman at BSA and Edwin Anson. Similarly, only three gunmakers in the UK had ever favoured a cocking method based on a hinged grip - George Norman, Edwin Anson and Lincoln Jeffries. So up pops a pistol from the pre-war period, incorporating both of these features, plus some ingenious new design concepts, very professionally made, and perhaps dubiously marked as made by BSA. We can discount Lincoln Jeffries, as he was an avid patenter, and would have certainly have patented this design if it had been his. I know I am biased and would love it to be a BSA prototype, but I can’t help thinking that the balance of probabilities are with it being BSA in origin.



Nothing really to do with this, but I found a bit of interesting history about George Norman. He joined BSA in 1896, and progressed from assistant engineer to chief engineer by about 1910. He was named inventor or co-inventor on all the pre-war BSA airgun patents, and on virtually all their firearms patents, and he had a particular penchant for designing repeating weapons and cartridge loading systems. He designed the BSA version of the Thompson machine gun, and was directly involved with the development of the Lee Enfield rifles. Then I found this brief account, as part of a discussion of the Mark III Lee Enfield:

“When such a famous weapon as the Mark III with all its
associations goes out of production, there is an inevitable
feeling of regret. In such affection was the model held at
Small Heath that after the last gun had been dispatched
in December, 1943, it was decided to hold a “farewell”
dinner for those members of the staff and workers who had
been closely associated with its production over a number
of years. Among those who attended was Mr. George
Norman, a former works manager who, although 85, was
retained in a consultative capacity and used to visit the
works once a week. He had joined B.S.A. in 1896 and had
been connected with the first Mark I Lee Enfield in 1904
as well as the Mark III in World War No. 1. During dinner
he told story after story of the “good old days”. And as if
with the passing of the gun he had fathered so lovingly his
life’s work had been completed, Mr. Norman went home
that night to die peacefully in his chair.”

What a lovely way to go!

[ptdunk]

“When such a famous weapon as the Mark III with all its
associations goes out of production, there is an inevitable
feeling of regret. In such affection was the model held at
Small Heath that after the last gun had been dispatched
in December, 1943, it was decided to hold a “farewell”
dinner for those members of the staff and workers who had
been closely associated with its production over a number
of years. Among those who attended was Mr. George
Norman, a former works manager who, although 85, was
retained in a consultative capacity and used to visit the
works once a week. He had joined B.S.A. in 1896 and had
been connected with the first Mark I Lee Enfield in 1904
as well as the Mark III in World War No. 1. During dinner
he told story after story of the “good old days”. And as if
with the passing of the gun he had fathered so lovingly his
life’s work had been completed, Mr. Norman went home
that night to die peacefully in his chair.”

That's lovely.

[Powderfinger]

That is very moving. Those were days of great Britons.

[micky2]

That's a great story.

[basa]

In my opinion this is one of the most interesting & intrigueing threads for a goodly while. There are many good points raised & although we may not know for certain, at the moment any rate, whose design this is or who made it makes for a fascinating read.
Garvins point about the trigger guard spring & cocking lever arrangement being such that they might not infringe other patents seems valid to me.
Was it a BSA prototype? I really don't know but if it was then I wonder why it never went into production. Even if it wasn't BSA who oversaw the design & the making of this example I still wonder why it didn't get marketed. Was the competition too well established, did the outbreak of WW2 effect it, was it deemed too tricky to make, would the manufacturing cost be too high & consequently the selling price be too high too?
As an aside I know not all speculative ideas/items get patented, there are various reasons & sometimes it's because it attracts attention to what a company is looking at. Not saying this is the case with this but maybe it's a possibility. Either way it's a bit of a shame this didn't get into production, I'd have been on the look out for one if it did. Such a neat design, cleverly thought out, I really like it & am quite taken with it.

Me too.

[trajectory]

I've just been looking over this thread again & a question about the lettering came to mind.

In the text its mentioned that the main body tube is 1" diameter & I wondered if BSA, if indeed it can be attributed to them would have been able to acid etch it ir not. The reason I ask is that I dont know how the process was done on their rifles. Were there templates stencils for the acid etching that were specific to the cylinder diameters of the rifles they made at the time & hence explain why they couldn't use them on this non production size tube? As it's a thin wall tube stamping would have been likely or at least possibly cause some distortion of the tube with adverse effects if it was over the compression space ahead of the piston. Maybe they could accept some deformation of the tube that the compressed spring occupied but not where the piston passed over, but maybe they didn't want to stamp it as they knew the risk to the tube & it wouldnt be a good engineering solution to properly identifying the pistol. If, & it is if, etching & stamping were out of the question then what else was there to hand that they could easily use but an engraver of some sort or another, maybe the pentograph was the best option? Would it have been easier than making an etching screen (?), or press rollering the lettering on a non standard tube?

Just wish somebody would take up the idea again & make them, but I know they won't & even if they did they'd only sell a few & the price would be the same as a decent secondhand car, but it seems such a neat design not to have gone into production. Many other prototypes or drawings you see you can look at & go "ah, but" & see something that could be bettered or simplified but this has ticked just about all of the right boxes to make it, in my opinion, a useable, practical & good little air pistol.

[ccdjg]

I would agree with you (and the engraving expert) that pantograph engraving is how the markings were produced.

My take on it is that prototypes are not marked unless it is deemed necessary, and this one probably lay around in its workshop for quite a while unmarked because the decision not to commercialise it was taken quite early on. At some point it was archived and so it was decided to mark it, just for the record. The easiest way to do this would have been with a pantograph/spinning cutter engraver, something that any large engineering enterprise would have to hand. The rather crude outlines to the lettering under magnification are consistent with such an engraver being used on steel, as they give much sharper results on softer metals like brass or aluminium.

[ptdunk]

Just read the Chapter concerning this pistol in the new edition of the Encyclopedia Of Spring Air pistols and it reminded me what a fascinating discovery this pistol was, and what a treat it is for us to get to see these new discoveries as and when John shares them with the forum.
Lucky us.

Cheers,
Matt