The Revolver 1818-1865 by A.W.F.Taylerson / R.A.N. Andrews & J. Frith

The Revolver 1818-1865 by A.W.F.Taylerson / R.A.N. Andrews & J. Frith

The Revolver 1818-1865 by A.W.F.Taylerson / R.A.N. Andrews & J. Frith.

THE REVOLVER, 1818-1865 is the full story of our early revolving arms and the steps by which they became the side-arms of multitudes. It is also a story of men who brought this about – Samuel Colt, Robert Adams, William Tranter and the Webley Brothers, to mention but a few manufacturers. Much that is written in this book about them has never before been made available to collectors. Other names may now be almost unknown, and their bearers’ weapons for-gotten, but Americans, Englishmen, French-men, Irishmen and Scotsmen all contributed to the history unfolded in these pages and their contribution is duly weighed. As to the weapons, the plates illustrate more than sixty flintlock arms, pepperboxes, transition-type and percussion revolvers, rifles, and breech-loading arms, whilst fifty line-drawings and figures show lock-mechanisms, contemporary advertisements, machinery and additional weapons. Particular care has been taken to explain those steps by which the various inventors patented (and thus protected) their individual designs, and every relevant English or British patent of the period is listed, the duration of protection stated and a note of the subject matter given. As a corollary to this material, the authors have ventured deep into the field of those serial-numbers impressed upon so many revolvers of the period (a subject hitherto neglected by others), and their researches will be of great assistance to collectors in establishing the dating of numbered arms, or the quantity produced. Moreover, where any weapon appeared in several models or versions, pains have been taken to illustrate the variant arms wherever possible.