Henry Deringer's Pocket Pistol
New York: William Morrow and Company, 1952. Presumed First Edition, First Printing (although some content may have been published elsewhere in 1947). Hardcover. 255, [1] pages. Illustrations. Appendix A: Deringer v. Plate. Appendix B. Cartridge Deringers. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Ex-library with the usual library markings. Part of spine missing. Cover shows wear and soiling, with edges rubbed and corners bumped. Front and rear board had weakness noted and have been reglued to strengthen. No dust jacket present. Appears to be missing a rear end paper. Technical content complete. A derringer or deringer is a small handgun that is neither a revolver, semi-automatic pistol, nor machine pistol. The modern derringer is often multi-barreled, and is generally the smallest usable handgun of any given caliber and barrel length due to the lack of a moving action, which takes up more space behind the barrel. The original Philadelphia Deringer was a muzzleloading caplock single-shot pistol introduced in 1825 by Henry Deringer. In total, approximately 15,000 Deringer pistols were manufactured. All were single-barrel pistols with back-action percussion locks, typically .41 caliber with rifled bores and walnut stocks. Barrel length varied from 1.5 to 6 in, and the hardware was commonly a copper-nickel alloy known as "German silver". Henry Deringer's Pocket Pistol is the story of Philadelphia gunmaker Henry Deringer and his famed namesake pocket pistol - the gun that John Wilkes Booth used to kill President Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theater in 1865. Models, patents, other makers, copies and infringements, cartridge types and much more. John E Parsons was one of America's most reliable and outstanding firearms historians. Henry Deringer (October 26, 1786 – February 28, 1868) was an American gunsmith, inventor, and businessman. He is best known as the eponymous inventor of the derringer pistol. Deringer's early efforts were for military contracts, producing military pistols, muskets, and rifles. Among those he produced were the Model 1814 Common Rifle and the Model 1817 Common Rifle. He produced trade rifles, designated for the Native American tribes, to fulfill the U.S. treaty obligations. His specialties became fine sporting rifles and dueling pistols, and he stopped pursuing government contracts by the mid-1840s. In 1825, he designed the first of the large-caliber, short-barreled pistols that would become known as derringer pistols (originally Philadelphia Deringers) and earn him considerable wealth and fame. Using the basic flintlock action common at the time, the pistols were muzzle-loading single-shots or, in some cases, double-barreled in an over-under manner. Later models used the percussion cap action, although models with both actions were manufactured and sold for some time. For arms of Deringer's own design, he adopted newer percussion cap technology, placing his pistol at the cutting edge of firearms. He perfected the percussion cap by about 1820 and was marketing them by the 1830s and possibly as early as the mid-1820s Deringer never claimed a patent for his pistols, and the public bought them as fast as he produced them. Further development and copying of his design resulted in the generic derringer pistol that was manufactured widely by other companies. There was widespread copying of his designs, including outright counterfeiting, with even his proofmarks being copied. One company even hired a tailor named John Deringer so that it could put the Deringer name on its firearms. Some of Deringer's workmen also left the company to set up their own duplicates, while others copied his pistols as closely as possible, with some even using its Deringer name and trademark. Deringer fought these infringements for most of his business life. The Deringer v. Plate ruling, in which the California Supreme Court ruled in the company's favor, became a landmark in trademark law. Condition: Fair.
Keywords: Small Arms, Pistol, Henry Deringer, Slotter, Trademark Infringement, Cartridge, Colt, Technology Development, Francis Armstrong, Adolphus Plate, Remington, Schlotterbeck, Slotter, Gunsmith, Gun Manufacturing
[Book #91841]
Price: $115.00