I would watch the Holt's Auction in the UK
The allure of the British gun
- Thread starter Stephen Nash
- Start date
I would watch the Holt's Auction in the UK
Interesting article by Tate in The Field on the demand for 'high art' embellished English guns:
https://www.thefield.co.uk/features/fancy-firearms-56282
https://www.thefield.co.uk/features/fancy-firearms-56282
People, or bots, are still reading this thread, as the view count steadily rises. Thanks to recent posters who have tried to keep it going. I haven’t abandoned this thread entirely; I just won’t be contributing as often as I focus on other projects.
For those of us interested in the history of guns, gunmaking, and shooting sports, the Internet is a wonderful thing. Before the prevalence of search engines and AI, we had to sift through expensive or hard-to-find books, obscure documents and records. Some authors, their books, and primary records could be relied upon to provide the best and most complete information. But this information has never been complete, and even the best-intentioned can make errors in interpretation and reporting facts. No one, 50, 100, or 200 years ago, was thinking about the needs of future hobbyists, historians, and documentarians, and at times, very little was written down (though more so in more recent times). Gunmakers worried about orders, sales, stock, and skilled manpower. Beyond the occasional remembered family histories, much of the information about past ages comes from scraps of data and what can be gleaned from the guns themselves, often in the form of cryptic initials and numbers. And not that many guns and gunmakers have been described in great detail.
From an electronic standpoint, not everything has been catalogued and tagged for the sake of search engines, or ‘scraped’ by bots seeking to feed the insatiable AI monster. While the Internet has provided incredible access to information, much remains outside the reach of today’s digital information age. There is still room for diligent human researchers and the steady march of the knowledge that results from research. But pushing against this effort is a wall of erroneous online information, and now, the hallucinations of AI.
Why am I ranting about the limits of cyberspace, you might ask? It comes from frustration, the result of trying to pin down details about the Birmingham gunmaking firm J & W Tolley. “Ah,” some of you might be thinking, “a firm best known for big-bore dangerous-game rifles and big-bore waterfowling guns,” and you would be correct. Occasional examples of the “Tolley Giant Grip” turn up, an interesting invention. The Tolley firm also put out superb game guns. But this reputation and recognized output came late in the business's history, and its early years are much more obscure and difficult to trace. Almost everything known about the firm and its guns is from the late 1870s onwards, with their reputation well established by the turn of the century. In 1916, the firm was bought by Holloway and Naughton, which in turn was bought by Skimmin & Wood in 1929. The Tolley name ceased to appear on guns in the 1950s.
James William Tolley and his younger brother, William Tolley, established their business in 1858 at 22 St Mary’s Row, in the Birmingham Gun Quarter. It is said that they produced large quantities of cheap guns for the African market.
As a side note, the author Priya Satia, in her analytical book Empire of Guns (2018), wrote: “In West Africa, guns were not only weapons in warfare but also symbols of prestige used in the firing of salutes and other festive and ceremonial occasions, such as funerals, births, marriages, and victory celebrations. They were diplomatic gifts exchanged between African polities. They also had socio-economic uses related to agriculture and hunting, such as crop protection in newly cleared areas. These nonmilitary uses help explain the African taste for the low-grade trade musket, which was not intended for rapid reloading and was cheap, light, easy to repair, and devoid of delicate parts.” She also added: “British guns sold in Africa remained remarkably poor in quality, despite advances in technology: rough-hewn, usually unsigned, often unproved, and increasingly anachronistic in design.”
Somewhere in the 1860s, and I don’t know exactly when, J & W Tolley dropped this trade and switched to making better guns, intended for British sportsmen and military personnel, especially those venturing to the outer reaches of the British Empire, such as India, Hong Kong, and the various colonies (I guess that includes us). This is reflected in advertisements in newspapers, either printed in those places or in Britain with an expatriate readership. As good businessmen, they spied a niche to be filled and did so in earnest. Perhaps as a result of experience producing low-quality guns in quantity, they vied to undercut the sporting gun market by offering guns at much lower prices than the competition. The best-known example of this is Tolley’s inclusion of an ‘8-Guinea’ [£8.8s.] pin-fire gun in the 1866 public Trial organized by the newspaper The Field, which I’ve covered earlier in this thread. Every other gun in the trial was twice as expensive to almost five times as expensive. OK, on the day, all the other guns (but one) patterned better on paper targets, but not by five times. Considering how few of us has ever bothered to test and compare patterns with our own guns and cartridges and how easily we swallow the hype of manufacturers, I can’t imagine the lower price of the Tolley didn’t sway a lot of sportsmen looking to buy their first cartridge gun, and who figured the birds were going to be just as dead as with a 35-Guinea gun.
Continued....
For those of us interested in the history of guns, gunmaking, and shooting sports, the Internet is a wonderful thing. Before the prevalence of search engines and AI, we had to sift through expensive or hard-to-find books, obscure documents and records. Some authors, their books, and primary records could be relied upon to provide the best and most complete information. But this information has never been complete, and even the best-intentioned can make errors in interpretation and reporting facts. No one, 50, 100, or 200 years ago, was thinking about the needs of future hobbyists, historians, and documentarians, and at times, very little was written down (though more so in more recent times). Gunmakers worried about orders, sales, stock, and skilled manpower. Beyond the occasional remembered family histories, much of the information about past ages comes from scraps of data and what can be gleaned from the guns themselves, often in the form of cryptic initials and numbers. And not that many guns and gunmakers have been described in great detail.
From an electronic standpoint, not everything has been catalogued and tagged for the sake of search engines, or ‘scraped’ by bots seeking to feed the insatiable AI monster. While the Internet has provided incredible access to information, much remains outside the reach of today’s digital information age. There is still room for diligent human researchers and the steady march of the knowledge that results from research. But pushing against this effort is a wall of erroneous online information, and now, the hallucinations of AI.
Why am I ranting about the limits of cyberspace, you might ask? It comes from frustration, the result of trying to pin down details about the Birmingham gunmaking firm J & W Tolley. “Ah,” some of you might be thinking, “a firm best known for big-bore dangerous-game rifles and big-bore waterfowling guns,” and you would be correct. Occasional examples of the “Tolley Giant Grip” turn up, an interesting invention. The Tolley firm also put out superb game guns. But this reputation and recognized output came late in the business's history, and its early years are much more obscure and difficult to trace. Almost everything known about the firm and its guns is from the late 1870s onwards, with their reputation well established by the turn of the century. In 1916, the firm was bought by Holloway and Naughton, which in turn was bought by Skimmin & Wood in 1929. The Tolley name ceased to appear on guns in the 1950s.
James William Tolley and his younger brother, William Tolley, established their business in 1858 at 22 St Mary’s Row, in the Birmingham Gun Quarter. It is said that they produced large quantities of cheap guns for the African market.
As a side note, the author Priya Satia, in her analytical book Empire of Guns (2018), wrote: “In West Africa, guns were not only weapons in warfare but also symbols of prestige used in the firing of salutes and other festive and ceremonial occasions, such as funerals, births, marriages, and victory celebrations. They were diplomatic gifts exchanged between African polities. They also had socio-economic uses related to agriculture and hunting, such as crop protection in newly cleared areas. These nonmilitary uses help explain the African taste for the low-grade trade musket, which was not intended for rapid reloading and was cheap, light, easy to repair, and devoid of delicate parts.” She also added: “British guns sold in Africa remained remarkably poor in quality, despite advances in technology: rough-hewn, usually unsigned, often unproved, and increasingly anachronistic in design.”
Somewhere in the 1860s, and I don’t know exactly when, J & W Tolley dropped this trade and switched to making better guns, intended for British sportsmen and military personnel, especially those venturing to the outer reaches of the British Empire, such as India, Hong Kong, and the various colonies (I guess that includes us). This is reflected in advertisements in newspapers, either printed in those places or in Britain with an expatriate readership. As good businessmen, they spied a niche to be filled and did so in earnest. Perhaps as a result of experience producing low-quality guns in quantity, they vied to undercut the sporting gun market by offering guns at much lower prices than the competition. The best-known example of this is Tolley’s inclusion of an ‘8-Guinea’ [£8.8s.] pin-fire gun in the 1866 public Trial organized by the newspaper The Field, which I’ve covered earlier in this thread. Every other gun in the trial was twice as expensive to almost five times as expensive. OK, on the day, all the other guns (but one) patterned better on paper targets, but not by five times. Considering how few of us has ever bothered to test and compare patterns with our own guns and cartridges and how easily we swallow the hype of manufacturers, I can’t imagine the lower price of the Tolley didn’t sway a lot of sportsmen looking to buy their first cartridge gun, and who figured the birds were going to be just as dead as with a 35-Guinea gun.
Continued....
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Just how far back the Tolley firm started making breech-loading game guns is what I wanted to know. Until recently, I had never encountered an early Tolley. Records haven’t survived, so a review of every known tidbit of information was necessary. In an online, private, source of obscure gunmaker data I’ve grown to trust, was the following statement: “An 1862 advertisement stated ‘Gun rifle and pistol manufacturers, Contractor for Military Arms, Breech Loading Guns, Pistols, also all guns suitable for the African markets’.” This was the earliest date I could trace, so it was a good starting point. I have also learned that every fact and statement about historical gunmaking needs to be checked and double-checked to avoid repeating errors, including published ones. A straightforward Google search did not turn up the 1862 advertisement or any Tolley advertisement along the same lines. Nor did a search using several other popular search engines. I then turned to AI, as a number of well-meaning folks have encouraged me to try. I used the latest version of ChatGPT and started a back-and-forth conversation with the language model, looking to identify the source of the advertisement. It started by quoting back to me my own writings on Tolley and Internet board posts influenced by the original online quote. By pushing harder for specifics, ChatGPT then informed me of the source of the Tolley advertisement, using those words:
I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I could have stopped there, but I didn’t-- I double-check everything. So I was able to track down a scanned copy of that newspaper for that date, from the National Library of Australia. The Tolley advert wasn’t there. I checked issues from several days before and after that date, without success. So I went back to ChatGPT and challenged the model with this result. It basically said: “Correct, there is no such advertisement. The original published statement may have been in error,” without acknowledging that moments earlier it had presented its ‘findings’ as fact. This absurdity, of giving factual statements, then after challenging them, being informed that the earlier ‘facts’ were indeed wrong, was repeated several times. This was my first experience with large language models being biased towards pleasing you rather than being accurate/objective. I wanted an answer, pressed hard for one, so it gave me what I wanted – but it totally made it up.
The Wikipedia entry for AI hallucinations explains: “In the field of artificial intelligence (AI), a hallucination or artificial hallucination (also called bull####ting, confabulation, or delusion) is a response generated by AI that contains false or misleading information presented as fact.” Yeah. “For example, a chatbot powered by large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, may embed plausible-sounding random falsehoods within its generated content.” No kidding. Hence, my rant about fake and misleading information on the Internet. I could have been satisfied with the ChatGPT response and written about that data point online. This would have been scraped up by bots, and further solidify the misinformation with a new reference. Others, or chatbots, might have quoted me as a reference, and there you have it, false data as fact, stronger with every repetition. As AI becomes further and further embedded in Google searches and academic research, how long before we can’t trust any ‘fact’ out there? An interesting and frightening learning experience. Case in point, I just noticed a new YouTube video about an SKB over/under made in...1854? I guess ChatGPT wrote that script...
In my research, I try to stick to primary sources, contemporary sources, and original research by myself and others (which can be verified). The earliest account of a Tolley breech-loader I am certain of is April 1866, the date of the well-documented Field trial; I can presume Tolley made them earlier, though how early I cannot tell. The trial would have generated publicity and orders, but by mid-1867, the price of the basic Tolley pin-fire game gun had increased to ten Guineas, or £10.10s. It was available with damascus or ‘punched steel’ barrels (which I take to be drawn steel, which was just starting to appear). This was still about half the price of comparable guns. The price remained at that level throughout its promotion, at least until February 1876. Shortly after this, all J & W Tolley adverts ceased to mention pin-fire guns, with production limited to central-fire. Advertisements for this gun stopped appearing in The Field newspaper after 23 March 1872, which mainly had a readership within Britain. Tolley continued advertising his bargain pin-fire in newspapers aimed at expatriate readers, such as Broad Arrow, Volunteer Service Gazette and Military Dispatch, Army and Navy Gazette, Home News for India, China and the Colonies, Homeward Mail from India, China and the East, and foreign newspapers, such as the Indian Statesman.
Ad in The Field, 13 July 1867:
Ad in The Field, 16 October 1869:
Ad in the Volunteer Service Gazette and Military Dispatch, 25 March 1871:
A run of at least 10 years for a particular model of pin-fire gun presents a problem for ageing the gun in the absence of the maker’s records. Often, a narrow manufacturing ‘window’ can be determined by features and styles that tended to come and go quickly as technology advanced and tastes changed. Tolley had little reason to change their entry-level gun, especially if keeping to the same pattern kept production costs down. There is even the possibility the £10.10s. gun was what we now define as a loss leader, where the selling price is below the cost of production, to attract loyal customers who will move on to better (and more profitable) guns. I don’t know, but keeping the same price for at least 10 years makes me wonder.
So, what does an entry-level, half-the-price-of-the-competition, Tolley pin-fire look like? Here is one, and it’s the only one I’ve ever seen – it fell into my lap, as it were, a few weeks ago. It is a 14-bore rotary-underlever pin-fire, lacking a serial number. It has 30” laminated steel barrels with Birmingham proofs, and the machine-forged barrel tubes are stamped “Roses Patent No. 20,” indicating they were made by the Rose Brothers of the Hales-Owen Mills & Forge, located in Halesowen, Worcestershire. The top rib lacks a street address but has “Fine Stub Damascus” inscribed on it. The back-action locks are signed “J & W Tolley.” The gun may have been produced on a nameless workbench at Tolley’s instruction, which explains the lack of a number and retail address. However, the gun is stamped with the initials ‘WT,’ which could be for William Tolley, suggesting at least part of the gun was crafted in-house. There is also a barrel maker’s mark, ‘JS,’ which I believe is for the barrel maker Joseph Smith of 27/28 Loveday Street, who would have assembled the Rose Brothers tubes. The only obvious cost-cutting measure is the standard double-bite action with underlever, and the lack of a silver stock escutcheon. Otherwise, the gun has attractive foliate scroll engraving, starburst detailing at the pin-fire apertures, a well-figured stock, and a horn-tipped fore-end. As to date, it could have been made anytime between 1866 and 1876, but by the 1870s other Birmingham makers were putting out inexpensive pin-fires with much less detail and finish, and with crude ‘Birmingham squiggle’ engraving. For a fourth-quality gun and the cheapest on the breech-loading market, it is surprisingly well-made. Period repairs might hold clues as to the use of cheaper, less durable materials: one hammer has been replaced, and some work has been done on one of the locks, perhaps a replacement of a mainspring and tumbler. Despite its long life, it still has clean bores, and it weighs 7lb 2 oz. When new, it would have been quite a handsome gun, and I can only imagine the confusion of other gunmakers, who charged twice the price for a similarly appearing gun.
“The 1862 advertisement for J. W. Tolley (James William Tolley) appeared in the South Australian Register, an Adelaide-based newspaper (National Library of Australia – NLA). In the November 20, 1862 edition, the firm was listed as "Gun, rifle, and pistol manufacturers" and explicitly described itself as: "Contractor for Military Arms, Breech Loading Guns, Pistols, also all guns suitable for the African markets." This publication reflects the firm's early business model, which relied on exporting large quantities of "trade guns" to international markets, including Africa and Australia, before they became famous for their high-end "big bore" sporting rifles.”
I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I could have stopped there, but I didn’t-- I double-check everything. So I was able to track down a scanned copy of that newspaper for that date, from the National Library of Australia. The Tolley advert wasn’t there. I checked issues from several days before and after that date, without success. So I went back to ChatGPT and challenged the model with this result. It basically said: “Correct, there is no such advertisement. The original published statement may have been in error,” without acknowledging that moments earlier it had presented its ‘findings’ as fact. This absurdity, of giving factual statements, then after challenging them, being informed that the earlier ‘facts’ were indeed wrong, was repeated several times. This was my first experience with large language models being biased towards pleasing you rather than being accurate/objective. I wanted an answer, pressed hard for one, so it gave me what I wanted – but it totally made it up.
The Wikipedia entry for AI hallucinations explains: “In the field of artificial intelligence (AI), a hallucination or artificial hallucination (also called bull####ting, confabulation, or delusion) is a response generated by AI that contains false or misleading information presented as fact.” Yeah. “For example, a chatbot powered by large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, may embed plausible-sounding random falsehoods within its generated content.” No kidding. Hence, my rant about fake and misleading information on the Internet. I could have been satisfied with the ChatGPT response and written about that data point online. This would have been scraped up by bots, and further solidify the misinformation with a new reference. Others, or chatbots, might have quoted me as a reference, and there you have it, false data as fact, stronger with every repetition. As AI becomes further and further embedded in Google searches and academic research, how long before we can’t trust any ‘fact’ out there? An interesting and frightening learning experience. Case in point, I just noticed a new YouTube video about an SKB over/under made in...1854? I guess ChatGPT wrote that script...
In my research, I try to stick to primary sources, contemporary sources, and original research by myself and others (which can be verified). The earliest account of a Tolley breech-loader I am certain of is April 1866, the date of the well-documented Field trial; I can presume Tolley made them earlier, though how early I cannot tell. The trial would have generated publicity and orders, but by mid-1867, the price of the basic Tolley pin-fire game gun had increased to ten Guineas, or £10.10s. It was available with damascus or ‘punched steel’ barrels (which I take to be drawn steel, which was just starting to appear). This was still about half the price of comparable guns. The price remained at that level throughout its promotion, at least until February 1876. Shortly after this, all J & W Tolley adverts ceased to mention pin-fire guns, with production limited to central-fire. Advertisements for this gun stopped appearing in The Field newspaper after 23 March 1872, which mainly had a readership within Britain. Tolley continued advertising his bargain pin-fire in newspapers aimed at expatriate readers, such as Broad Arrow, Volunteer Service Gazette and Military Dispatch, Army and Navy Gazette, Home News for India, China and the Colonies, Homeward Mail from India, China and the East, and foreign newspapers, such as the Indian Statesman.
Ad in The Field, 13 July 1867:
Ad in The Field, 16 October 1869:
Ad in the Volunteer Service Gazette and Military Dispatch, 25 March 1871:
A run of at least 10 years for a particular model of pin-fire gun presents a problem for ageing the gun in the absence of the maker’s records. Often, a narrow manufacturing ‘window’ can be determined by features and styles that tended to come and go quickly as technology advanced and tastes changed. Tolley had little reason to change their entry-level gun, especially if keeping to the same pattern kept production costs down. There is even the possibility the £10.10s. gun was what we now define as a loss leader, where the selling price is below the cost of production, to attract loyal customers who will move on to better (and more profitable) guns. I don’t know, but keeping the same price for at least 10 years makes me wonder.
So, what does an entry-level, half-the-price-of-the-competition, Tolley pin-fire look like? Here is one, and it’s the only one I’ve ever seen – it fell into my lap, as it were, a few weeks ago. It is a 14-bore rotary-underlever pin-fire, lacking a serial number. It has 30” laminated steel barrels with Birmingham proofs, and the machine-forged barrel tubes are stamped “Roses Patent No. 20,” indicating they were made by the Rose Brothers of the Hales-Owen Mills & Forge, located in Halesowen, Worcestershire. The top rib lacks a street address but has “Fine Stub Damascus” inscribed on it. The back-action locks are signed “J & W Tolley.” The gun may have been produced on a nameless workbench at Tolley’s instruction, which explains the lack of a number and retail address. However, the gun is stamped with the initials ‘WT,’ which could be for William Tolley, suggesting at least part of the gun was crafted in-house. There is also a barrel maker’s mark, ‘JS,’ which I believe is for the barrel maker Joseph Smith of 27/28 Loveday Street, who would have assembled the Rose Brothers tubes. The only obvious cost-cutting measure is the standard double-bite action with underlever, and the lack of a silver stock escutcheon. Otherwise, the gun has attractive foliate scroll engraving, starburst detailing at the pin-fire apertures, a well-figured stock, and a horn-tipped fore-end. As to date, it could have been made anytime between 1866 and 1876, but by the 1870s other Birmingham makers were putting out inexpensive pin-fires with much less detail and finish, and with crude ‘Birmingham squiggle’ engraving. For a fourth-quality gun and the cheapest on the breech-loading market, it is surprisingly well-made. Period repairs might hold clues as to the use of cheaper, less durable materials: one hammer has been replaced, and some work has been done on one of the locks, perhaps a replacement of a mainspring and tumbler. Despite its long life, it still has clean bores, and it weighs 7lb 2 oz. When new, it would have been quite a handsome gun, and I can only imagine the confusion of other gunmakers, who charged twice the price for a similarly appearing gun.
Londonshooter
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- SW Ontario
A hoity toity address on this label:
Yeah, I think Tolley intentionally or inadvertently hit on the marketing 'Rule of Three,' where, given a low-medium-high choice, the medium choice appears to be the best value, especially if you can't afford the highest. It might be that Tolley didn't have to build many 10-Guinea guns (and maybe lose money in the process), as the spread pushed buyers to the middle, which was still cheaper than the competition. I've not seen anything about the Tolley 'forward action' gun, which I presume to be a snap action, as such actions were popular by the mid-1860s. Maybe one will turn up...
In the spirit of which this thread is watched I see the Holts auction is this week in the UK. I am sure there is not a piece there that anyone would not like to add to there cabinet. The Jeffrey double hammer gun in .450 nitro express looked rather special even though I am a shotgun guy.
sillymike
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
The late 19th century were certainly an interesting time, as far as British shotguns were concerned
Stumbled upon this on #######
Francis Bacon’s patent 12 gauge double barrel bolt action shotgun, bottom eject... crica 1870
Stumbled upon this on #######
Francis Bacon’s patent 12 gauge double barrel bolt action shotgun, bottom eject... crica 1870
One of those rare times a Brit could out-weird the French...The late 19th century were certainly an interesting time, as far as British shotguns were concerned
Stumbled upon this on #######
Francis Bacon’s patent 12 gauge double barrel bolt action shotgun, bottom eject... crica 1870
At the Kamloops gun show Saturday was blessed to see an immaculate cased Purdey that was incredible in its workmanship and detail. Also my first 8 bore single that made me feel somewhat sheepish about wincing under my 10g SXS. Some very nice pieces and all made the trip worthwhile in my eyes as well as some very affordable ones should anyone be inclined. Was nice to see Ashcroft (Jim) again and yes there was a few items that followed me home, not the Westley Richards drop lock but that may be in the future.
We expect pictures. Oh, and look out for pin-fires, please?
