A Coleye Patent gun, looking for information

Stephen Nash

Stephen Nash

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The following is an interesting 16-bore pin-fire gun, and I am looking for additional information on this peculiar action and its enigmatic inventor. The gun has a rib inscription for August Schüler of Suhl, but it is of Belgian origin, with a single Liège provisional proof mark. At first I thought the gun was a Bastin system action, with the pivoted underlever and sliding barrels. I was therefore surprised to find the barrels swung on a hinge, and detached with a release lever on the left side of the action bar. The action is marked “M.N. COLEYE BREVETÉ”, and numbered 490. As the number is shared with the barrel I’m guessing it is the serial number and not a patent use number. As I am unfamiliar with Schüler guns, I don’t know if it is consistent with his numbering system, or is that of a Belgian maker, or that of Coleye if he made the entire gun and not just the action. The action is remarkably smooth and pleasant to use. If you were at the recent Double Gun Classic in Oshawa, you might have seen it.

A search on the Internet turned up two Coleye patent guns, a military-type rifle (13mm) and another 16-bore sporting gun almost identical to this one, numbered 1469. Neither is identified as to a maker/retailer, having only the Coleye patent mark. “Coleye” is not a recognized Liège maker, but “Colleye” is.

Maximilien Nicolas Colleye (notice the double L) was a gunmaker/actioner in Hoignée-Cheratte, a district of Liège, Belgium. He was the son of Henri Joseph Colleye, another gunmaker in Cheratte. Both hold a sizable number of gun patents for breech-loading actions. In the case of MN Colleye, these include patents granted on 31 December 1849 and 31 December 1850 [new pistol design], 7 March 1857 [moving breech], 29 April 1857 [improvement of earlier patent], 18 August 1857 [perfecting pin-fire system], and 15 October 1857 [improvement on moving breech]). Sadly I cannot trace these patents or find adequate descriptions of them, and I don’t know if the action in the photographs is one of these listed.

I’ve not been able to track down any gun definitely marked Colleye, so I’m assuming “Coleye” is an alternate spelling of “Colleye”, though why he would use the latter spelling in official circumstances and put the former on his actions is anyone’s guess.

I would be most grateful to hear if anyone out there has any information that can solve the Coleye-Colleye mystery, or have any similarly-marked guns in their collection that might shed some light on this inventor. This action was sufficiently known to be marketed to sportsmen in Belgium and Germany, but it is new to me.




 
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The list of Belgian gun makers is a perpetual rabbit hole. I’ve discovered a large number of them, produced various spurious forgeries of other makers works, and apparently marketed them under other makers names (usually misspelled)to try and rack up sales. Most look horrible. Yours looks great. I’ve seen a number of forgeries of colts, that were beautiful as well though. So might be a real pain figuring it out. Have you looked in the Belgian gunmakers database yet?
 
I'm betting that the name lost a 'L' to make the trademark more symmetrical without reducing the letter size. You'll notice that it doesn't actually show that it was made by M. Colleye, but allegedly under license from him, hence the use of the get-out word 'brevete'.
 
Here's an update on information I've been able to find out about the System Colleye gun. M N Colleye (1850-1865) was also spelled Coleye and Coley, and also traded as Colleye Fils, being the son of the well-known maker Henri Joseph Colleye. M N Colleye was an actioner and gunmaker, and developed his own breechloading mechanism, aptly named System Colleye. This mechanism was apparently popular in Germany and Austria, and several large gunmaking firms such as August Schuler of Suhl and Johann Peterlongo of Innsbruck, Austria, offerred System Colleye guns. Peterlongo had a System Colleye gun on display at the Paris World Fair in 1867. Interestingly, this mechanism never made it to any British pinfire makers, unlike other continental designs like the Bastin and Ghaye system actions, which were offered by several top makers. At a time when there were quite a few competing designs, it just wasn’t popular enough, or Colleye stopped making it.

The gun only has Belgian proof, so it was a gun made in Liege and sold by the German retailer, as opposed to a German-made gun that used the Colleye action under licence, which would have German proofs. Whether Colleye made the whole gun, or someone made the gun using a licenced Colleye action is anyone's guess. It would have been made with Schüler's name already on the rib. Here are additional pictures of the barrels, with the marks. Someone suggested that the 'ML' mark might be for Manufacture Liegeoise (Est. 1866), but their mark is a different oval with a crown - though the simple 'ML' might be an earlier mark, I suppose. This gun will retain a few mysteries. The barrels are acid-etched, possibly displaying a 'Bernard II' damascus pattern.

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