Since this is the Smith & Wesson Forum, I hesitate to post photos of my tons of other stuff; but, this one is just too good. It's a smooth bore and very large caliber pistol. It's a Scheintod! On each grip there is a little skeleton dancing down near the bottom corner. The hammer and loading gate remind me of the early British revolvers. Double action and single action. The trigger folds down and comes into place as soon as you cock the hammer. Very tight and fully functional, but I have not one clue as to what it shoots. Picked it up at a pawn shop close to 10 years ago. Some people have told me that it was designed to shoot poison bullets. Does anyone know what it is, when it was made, and what it shoots? I was told that the dancing skeleton was symbolic of the death it would cause through the use of poison bullets.

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Dr. B

It shoots gas cartridges. "Scheintodt" means "appearance of Death" You should be able to look it up. These German guns are not that unusual.

Interesting. From what little I can find on the internet, it is German and not many were made and few survived. It does say that it is around 11 mm and shoots a variety of gas cartridges. Tear gas/pepper spray seems to be one of them. One article says they were made between 1890 and 1920. Some were brought back by soldiers during WWII. It's not made to fire a bullet of any kind or it will blow up.

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Dr. B

So many different guns out there. Semi auto revolvers, nagant revolver etc. the one above.

In the latest issue (514) of the IAA Journal, there is a picture of two rounds of the Scheintodt ammunition along with a box of same. It does not provide any detail, but the rounds look like miniature shotshells, i.e., a metal base and a tubular paper body. It was stated that they contained powdered pepper.

That cylinder makes it look like a Governor's great grandpappy.

Find a copy of the reprint Adolf Frank (ALFA) catalog "Arms of the World 1911". It has several pages of Scheintodt pistols complete with ammo available at that time.

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

My candidate for strangest revolver has always been a Webly-Fosberry.

Trivia question (easy one): What book did the Webley-Fosberry play a minor role in ==also mentioned in the movie versions (there were 3 of them).

The Maltese Falcon, but I believe it was the 38 caliber version of the Webley-Fosberry. Fosberry had a VC, incidently.