Some of the most beautiful work of this craftsman, and many others, are in this book “Liège Gunmakers through their Work. 1800 - 1950”.

For more detail see: LIEGE GUNMAKERS

Nicolas Simonis

Here is a seven-shot revolver (caliber not specified, perhaps the 7. 62 Nagant?). who has lived well - or rather badly....

It happens, even to the best........

Except for the letters A and B in two of the cells, I don't see a punch. One member of the team first and rightly leaned towards a Grah revolver.

William Grah

....but then really "hit the nail on the head": the letters NS and the monogram "NS deposé" on the grip can be attributed to Nicolas Simonis, a gun manufacturer in Blegny-Trembleur, holder of the  patent 199498 of 15 April 1907 for "a new kind of lock applying to any weapon with a reversing cylinder of different calibres and models".

If you look at the patent in question, you can immediately see that it is indeed this weapon.

To be complete, let us recall that in a previous identification, a weapon had also been found which could be attributed to Nicolas Simonis:

See : http://www. littlegun.be/arme%20belge/artisans%20identifies%20s/a%20simonis%20nicolas%20fr. htm

GP with the help of HPH and MD for the sending of the patent.

Nicolas Simonis

This weapon is without any doubt a copy of Liège of a revolver S & W.

One should not be let misuse by the mention Smith & Wesson Springfield Mass.Pat. APR 8.55 July 5.59, certain arms manufacturers of Liège did not hesitate to counterfeit the large marks known to sell with export, often in South America, with naive or concerned customers of the low prices.

The weapon carries the lawful punches of the proof house of Liege, namely:

Spangled ELG in an oval: acceptance of 1846 to 1893.

K spangled: countermark of the controller post 1877.

V crowned: this punch creates a problem of identification because it is about the punch of controller used of 1853 to 1877! Perhaps the barrel comes it from another weapon, I am unaware of it but I am not differently explained the presence of this marking.

The manufacturer

Marking NS struck an amount of handle is the only evidence making it possible to identify the manufacturer.

The manufacturers of Liège were often very discrete, especially when they produced copies.

It is thus not rare to find the initial ones of a manufacturer at this place.

I thus put myself in the search of a manufacturer with initial NS (the practice taught us that the first name always preceded the name) during the time of 1877 to 1893.

Thus I discovered (with the reserves of use) a manufacturer corresponding to the data collected; it acts of SIMONIS Nicolas, manufacturer of weapons with BLEGNY-TREMBLEUR (province of Liege).

It is known for a deposit of three Belgian patents between 1877 and 1907.

The museum of weapons of Liege preserves a revolver system Nicolas SIMONIS at 6 shots, gauges 450 gone back to 1878 (ref. 487).

Conclusions

In spite of the fact that it is about a copy, this weapon seems of good quality and is completely representative of the production of weapon of Liège of the time.

 GG

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