Valentin Sauerbrey
Valentin Sauerbrey (* 1804 in Zella St. Blasii ; † February 26, 1881 in Basel ) was a German gunsmith who mainly worked in Switzerland .
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biography
Valentin Sauerbrey was born in Zella St. Blasii (today Zella-Mehlis ) in 1804 as the son of a gunsmith. It is believed that he learned his trade in his family or with a gunsmith in Zella St. Blasi. Since his professional skills far exceeded those of a provincial gunsmith - he also mastered the art of engraving and iron cutting - he was appointed ducal gunsmith by his sovereign Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha .
In 1840 Sauerbrey, “court rifle maker in Zella”, exhibited a double shotgun in Leipzig .
Despite good prospects for a successful professional career in the area, he applied for a position as an armory keeper in Basel . It is also possible that his future superior, Johann Lukas von Mechel, former Basel government councilor, suggested this post. Before he accepted the position as a kit attendant - the annual wage proposed by the council was CHF 400 - he obtained a certificate that, in addition to his work as a kit attendant, he could also work privately as a gunsmith.
Ordinance and police weapons
Sauerbrey sponsored von Mechel because he wanted to develop order weapons with his collaboration . He knew that Sauerbrey had manufactured a needle gun that showed improvements over the Prussian model. Later developments of double-barreled pistols and of a .455 caliber revolver developed in 1877/1878 and which can be dismantled without tools are also known . It is not known whether this weapon was presented to the Federal Revolver Commission.
The maintenance and repair of ordinance weapons was part of Sauerbrey's official activity. As long as there was no federal arms factory (founded in 1875), the ordinance weapons , pistols and rifles, for example the Ord 1853 hunter rifle, were manufactured in the cantonal armories and by private gunsmiths according to official templates. This also applied to modifications and partial production ( Vetterligewehr ). Under Valentin Sauerbrey, 5000 Vetterlige rifles, model 1869/71, were manufactured in the armory in Basel . It is unclear whether the weapons were made entirely or from externally manufactured parts.
In 1873 the police director Wirz suggested to the Basel government that the police should be armed with a rifle. Sauerbrey was then commissioned to develop such a weapon. The double-barreled rifle shotgun, caliber 16 mm with Lefaucheux ignition , developed by him, has a shot barrel and a ball barrel, length 550 mm. The government then approved a loan of CHF 11,000 for the manufacture of 85 weapons for the police.
Civil weapons
In addition to his official activities, Sauerbrey had the right to manufacture civilian weapons in the armory on his own account. Well-known are percussion target rifles, percussion hunting shotguns and rifles, air rifles, target system Martini, percussion target pistols, transition and bundle revolvers as well as replicas of American ( Colt , Smith & Wesson ), French ( Lefaucheux pen-fire revolvers ) and English Adams revolvers here. Most of the civilian weapons he makes are richly engraved.
Sauerbrey Navy Revolver versus Colt Navy Model 51 (below)
Sauerbrey Navy Revolver serial number 22, partially disassembled
Sauerbrey cartridge revolver in the box
Sauerbrey Navy in the box
Sauerbrey Colt replica, 5 shots
Patents
In addition to experiments with long guns , which instead of black powder used the gun cotton discovered by Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1846 , Sauerbrey developed various locking systems, including a military rifle with a drop barrel , rifles with cylinder lock , with drop block lock, and multi-loading systems, which he had patented .
Sauerbrey US Patent 1880 drop block lock
Sauerbrey US Patent 1880 box magazine
Sauerbrey US Patent 1880 cylinder lock
Sauerbrey patent excerpt (France) break-barrel rifle
Exhibitions
- Historisches Museum Basel , on the occasion of the 6th Congress of the International Association of Museums for Arms and Military History. 15-20 May 1972.
- At the industrial exhibition in London in 1851 , he received a medal for a window pane engraved with the story of Wilhelm Tell (today in the Basel Historical Museum).
- At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855 , the following weapons were exhibited on a list written by Sauerbrey: A Stutzer with accessories, case, price in Swiss francs (fs) 1500. A double rifle, barrels made of cast steel, fs 1500. Various revolvers (Colds System) Prices fs 200 to fs 400. A revolver (Adams Deane) system barrel and cylinder from Engl. Gussstahl with accessories and case, fs 260. A pair of double-barreled pocket pistols, accessories, case fs 360. For one of the weapons, the “Belle carabine double de precision “He received an honorary message.
- He was awarded a medal at the industrial exhibition in Bern
- The "Arms Concours" in Turin in 1859 brought him a 2nd prize.
literature
- Kriss Reinhart and Jürg A. Meier: Pistols and revolvers in Switzerland since 1720. Stocker and Schmid AG, Dietikon-Zurich 1898, ISBN 3-7276-7128-9 .
- Peter F. Kopp, Christian Reinhart (eds.): Valentin Sauerbrey in Basel 1846-1881. Catalog of the exhibition in the Historisches Museum Basel. Bollmann, Basel 1972.
- Wolfgang Schneewind: The gunsmith and Basel kitman Valentin Sauerbrey, 1804–1881. Basel Historical Museum, Basel 1949.
- Rolf Brönnemann: The Basel gunsmith Valentin Sauerbrey. On the development of the revolver in the 19th century. 1965.
Individual evidence
- ^ Directory of the fifth industrial exhibition of the Leipzig polytechnic society in the German booksellers' exchange. Ms. Nies, Leipzig 1840, p. 27.
- ↑ United States Patent Office: Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents to the Secretary of Commerce ... US Government Printing Office, 1881, p. 177.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sauerbrey, Valentin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German gunsmith |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1804 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Zella St. Blasii |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 26, 1881 |
| Place of death | Basel |