Larsen & Fils Shotgun

[andrew]

I live near Los Angeles, California, USA.  I have been given an old shotgun, in very worn conditon, that has the following writing on it:  Larsen & Fils, Liege.  The serial number is 209101.  It appears identical to the side-by-side shotgun shown on http://geocities.com/h_larsen_patent/4

I would like to learn more about it.  Can anyone help?

[Trond]

I must admit to being fairly hesitant to the fact of these really being Larsen produced guns or only a trade product sold through his operation. Anyhow, the shotgun with a fairly high percent of certainty produced after 1880 and before 1887. His catalogue of 1880 does not include shotguns and his Belgium operation closed in 1887.

Mr. Larsen probably made a load of money selling his tennstempel rifles in the mid to late 1870's and the very early 1880's. The sales then probably had a dramatic decline in 1881/82 and my guess is that they tried to find other products to cover this loss of turnover. This would explain the seemingly unexplainable drop in quality and expansion of models one can see from the middle to late 1880’s.

At the time it was usual to mark a gun with the sellers and not the producer's name, something that is evident in all the Belgium produced Larsen tennstempel rifles in Norway market Hagen, Hesselberg, Schoug and Torgersen etc.

Trond