Quote:
Originally Posted by turnerriver
Bucheimer had 102 years to figure this system out according to the catalog cover “Since 1884”.
Regards,
turnerriver
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That is a fun one :-). J.M. Bucheimer himself wasn't even born until 1890 (it's in The Book) so any older company had another name and other owners in 1884. When he died in '53 his son George (Richard) shifted operations in '56 from Towson (hence the markings 'Towson made') to Frederick; so we know that Bucheimer made holsters before '56.
Beyond that I've not seen early enough catalogs to know when they started as holster makers; Lawrence, for example, not until about 1940. Suffice to say that JMB's numbering system, and the one adopted by S&W and even Colt towards the end, weren't consumer friendly and devised only for their own convenience (problems that Bianchi and Safariland and everyone else solved from the get-go in the '60s.
I met a lot of these people in the '70s and '80s, at the gun companies, and they might as well have been selling dishwashers for all they cared about what consumers needed or wanted.