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Early M 1917 S & W revolver lettered to Quintana ... ???

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Carl Casto

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Early M 1917 S & W revolver lettered to Quintana ... ???

Anyone familiar with a contract with Mexico for some early M 1917 revolvers mfgd. by Smith and Wesson?

It is not mentioned in Pate and I've not read about it any other published sources I've reviewed either. And it seems counterintuitive that any / many M1917 revolver mfgd. by S&W and Colt to supplement the supply of M1911s to U.S. forces in WW I would be diverted anywhere but to U.S. government depots for use in Europe and within the states.

Yet I recently came across an unpublished reference to an early S&W M 1917 revolver having just a four-digit serial number with an associated factory letter that states that this revolver was shipped to Quintana.

I presume this is a reference to the Quintana Brothers in Mexico City. (Some further possibly relevant research indicates a very early Colt Government Model M 1911 pistol manufactured in November 1912 that was accompanied by a Colt factory letter dated Jan 2012, that lists it as one of 50 pistols shipped to the Quintana Brothers, Mexico City Mexico. The early 20th century revolution in Mexico lasted from about 1910 – 1920, so perhaps those Colt M 1911s were shipped to the Quintano Bros. In Mexico City for this reason.)

I've just started within the past year or two collecting selected 20th century American small arms, having been a collector (and shooter) of original 19th century U.S. And English small arms for the previous 25 years. … I've been reading with much interest and pleasure this wonderfully informative Smith and Wesson Forum for just the past week or two, and believe it to be a valuable source of collected knowledge and experience regarding these weapons.

So I am still a bit of a “rookie” with 20th century weapons in general, and Smith and Wesson weapons in particular. :)

Any comments and relevant information would be much appreciated.

Carl Casto
 
Probably not much help, but information from another forum about Quintana Hermanos:

The firm Quintana Hermanos was established in the 19th century by brothers Felipe and José Quintana. It worked as a gunshop and importer and the earliest address was Coliseo Viejo 7 street. Up to late 1950's this firm was managed by Wenceslao, Ignacio and Felipe Quintana. and was located in 16 de Septiembre 46 street, México D.F.

At one given time cartridge cases were imported as new primed empties from Canada, Italy, Spain and USA and were later loaded there. Bullets were also imported and shot was supplied by Mexican firms La Cazadora and Cía. Clemente Jaques. Powder was Du Pont and Hercules.

They also had a firearms factory located in Col. Martín Carrera street which produced Colt SAA copies and muzzle loading firearms. It was later relocated to Calle de Moctezuma 151 street.

This firm was one of the biggest gun shops and importers of its time, including famous Armería Americana of Combaluzier.
 
Thanks, DWalt, for your referenced material.

I had earlier also run across another reference, from an online book shown below, regarding Quintana Hermanos ... but it is of little additional value as well ...

"The 1878 patent law required that, in order to maintain in force the 20 years of exclusivity granted by the registered patent, an annual and progressive fee had to be paid; This prompted “Orbea Hermanos y Ca” to renounce, in 1895, to continue to maintain the patent obtained in 1884 for the ONA revolver, which, from this moment on, could be manufactured by anyone; In that same year “Orbea Hermanos y Ca” ceased to be the only firm in Eibar classified as an “arms factory” as “Quintana Hermanos” was added to this category ..."

(above is from linked source ... http://www.catalogacionarmas.com/public/parte2cap7.pdf)

Carl
 
Carl, welcome to the forum.

Can you let us know the exact serial number of the revolver in question and further details of the letter? The standard S&W letter of authentication includes both a specific ship date and a geographical location for the named recipient.

Also, does the revolver in question have the usual characteristics of the "U.S. Government Property" models, or does it have the slightly different characteristics of the "Commercial 1917" of the years following World War I?

At one point Quintana Brothers of Mexico City had a factory in Eibar, Spain. This geographical connection usually sparks suspicion among S&W collectors, as that region is famous for unlicensed copies of S&W models produced by a number of different armories. Some of these "counterfeit" S&Ws are of high quality, and some are not. Any additional information you could provide about the 1917 in question, as well as any photos you might have, would help us to evaluate the gun correctly and better address your questions.
 
More information:

"During the 1880s the brothers Felipe and Jose Quintana Arias, established in Mexico,were the main customers of the Eibar arms makers; Pedro Celaya in his work, “Eibar, aHistorical Monograph” (1908), tells us that, in 1892, the value of the arms purchased by them surpassed the amount of 16’000,000 Reales and that early in that year they had already placed an order for “5,000 shotguns of all types from a single Eibar factory” and that they were purchasing 2,000 revolvers per month from just four factories, which included “Orbea Hermanos”, “Anitua y Charola” (1881-98), Vicente Arizmendi (1881-94) and “Larrañaga, Garate y Ca” (1884-91) which was superseded in 1892 by “Garate, Anitua y Ca” They concluded that they could obtain larger profits by installing their own factory in Eibar and, under the name of “Hermanos Quintana” it first appears in the Eibar Industrial Register in 1895, classified as a “factory” from the start, on an equal tax basis to “Orbea Hermanos” (2,425 pesetas); That year the largest workshop was “Garate, Anitua y Ca” with 25 workers and paying 1,440 pesetas in taxes. Celaya tells us that the arrival of the Quintana brothers created great satisfaction among the Eibarrese workers who “expected their worth and demand to increase” because of it; In this optimistic climate twenty workers decided to marry in a joint ceremony “with music and revelries in which the entire town participated”; José Cruz Echeverria and his son Bonifacio even closed their shop and were hired as foremen by the Quintana brothers.

But, happy times did not last for long, and the Quintana brothers implanted new continuous work methods, divided in two shifts; Production rate increased by increasing specialization but also by increasing mass production of parts which also allowed hiring less skilled personnel earning lower salaries; And so, they suffered the first strike to take place in Eibar on August, 6, 1897; They reacted by firing the striking employees and bringing in workers from other places.

The “Hermanos Quintana” factory then disappears from the Eibar Industrial Register in 1901; Between 1896 and 1898 they obtained six patents among them one for “aluminum revolver grips”, another one for “one piece steel cartridges” and another one for “shotguns”; In 1897 they registered a trademark for cartridges; However they appear as “manufacturers of fine revolvers” in that era’s yearbooks.

Before establishing themselves in Spain Felipe Quintana obtained a patent, among others, which was granted in 1891, for “A Colt system revolver” based on the Colt 1889 Navy D.A but I doubt their factory in Eibar could produce it; After their closure Jose Quintana also obtained patents in Spain for “refinements” in shotguns."
 
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I looked at the pictures of the gun online. It's a standard military Model of 1917, serial number 3709, not a commercial ( civilian ) version, but without the S&W logo on the frame. It is odd that a US Military contract produced gun, with inspector stamps, would be in a single gun shipment to a dealer in Mexico. It may be that the gun was made before the US Army took control of the factory and S&W chose to send the gun to Quintana Bros. to fill their order, rather than include it in the guns delivered to Springfield Armory. Ed.
 
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Muley Gil said:
Maybe S&W was responding to a dealer's request (Quintana Bros) and that dealer was hoping to interest the Mexican Army in buying 1917s? Who knows at this late date.
Click to expand...

Quintana Hermanos or Armeria Quintana, was one of the biggest gunshops in Mexico City until the late 60's.

In those years a Mexican Citizen could buy any caliber he wanted, including the 45 acp, 45 colt, 44 magnum etc.

With the infamous gun law of 1972, We law abbiding citizens can no longer have "Big Calibers", because this are consider of "Exclusive use" by the Mexican Army.


A former employee at Armeria Quintana is a very good friend of mine, he told me that for every 1911 45 acp sold, about 9 .38 supers 1911 were sold in the same period. It is a fact that the .38 super was (and still is) a very popular caliber in Mexico.

Back in the day, my late grand father use to carry a .38 super (a Colt 1911 made in the 50's or a super match from the late 30's), sometimes he carried a Browning HP 9 mm, or his S&W Centennial. All of the guns were legally bought in Mexico City, and he had a carry permit issued by the Mexico City Police Department (In those days the Police was the authority that issue the gun carry permits).

Those days are gone, now Mexican Citizens can only have up to .380 acp or .38 specials as the biggest calibers allowed for civilians.

A new modification to the "STUPID GUN LAW" published last week, allows foreign police officers to carry .40 S&W caliber handguns inside Mexico. As you can see a foreigner police officers has more rights than a national.......sadly this kind of things can only be seen in Mexico.
 
I would tend to guess that one M1917 revolver could have been shipped to a big retailer as a salesman's sample without going through "official" channels. It's not like Mexico was at war with us. Smith & Wesson was in business to make money and would want to keep future sales possibilities open.

"... a very early Colt Government Model M 1911 pistol manufactured in November 1912 that was accompanied by a Colt factory letter dated Jan 2012, that lists it as one of 50 pistols shipped to the Quintana Brothers, Mexico City Mexico."

As for the Colts in the above quote, is there anything unusual about shipping 50 to Mexico in 1912? The "Great War" did not break out until 1914, and furthermore, the US did not declare war until 1917. So there would be no conflict with wartime production. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Colt sold a commercial version of the Government Model. Why would it be remarkable that Colt would ship them to a paying customer in Mexico or anywhere else in the world? :confused:
 
Indeed, the Colt Model of 1911 was sold on the civilian market early on. I have a 1914 wholesale hardware catalog from Hibbard, Spencer and Bartlett, Chicago, which offers them for the sum of $26.00 plus $1.15 each for extra magazines. I assume that is a wholesale price. I doubt there were export restrictions for sales to Mexico at that time.
 
Great replies and informative points made by all of you.

Quick reply now is all I can do right now for the moment.

Will address each responder later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Thanks again,

Carl
 
"It's not like Mexico was at war with us."

Almost!!

Zimmermann Telegram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Colt sold a commercial version of the Government Model."

They sure did. Back in my college days, a local gun shop had a commercial model Colt .45 in the case and the serial number was C 88 (the "C" prefix meaning commercial). Of course, it was waay out of my price range. Production was 1912.
 
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Carl, I found the write-up you were working from and see that some of what I asked for above cannot be provided. I'll mention in passing that a .44 Triple-Lock is known that shipped to Quintana in 1913, and that a shipment of of 20 .44 HEs was made to Armeria Quintana in Mexico City in 1937.

I think there are no problems with this gun now that I have understood it a little better. It's just a standard military item that was pulled from the expected distribution channel (i.e., the U.S. Government) and routed to Mexico, perhaps with the authorization of the government that was paying for it and perhaps not. The circumstances of this request may be hard to discover, but perhaps when the process of digitizing the S&W factory records is complete we will be able to find something more about this gun.
 
I want to apologize for not being able to get back sooner.

Thanks for all of your outstanding responses and input.

I've decided instead of answering / replying to all of your questions / comments on an individual basis, I'll reply to David's first and see where we go from there.

DC, thank you for your replies and the information. Glad you and at least one other located the revolver on line. I don't know how to post pictures, and I don't know if I am allowed to put a link in to this message, as I am new to this message board. So I will await further instructions regarding that.

Interesting that the other weapons that you mentioned were also shipped to Quintana in the teens and thirties.

I suppose I hadn't really considered that Smith and Wesson would have randomly pulled a M 1917 from the line to send to a foreign country's arms plant for examination ... if indeed that act was authorized by S&W, which I presume it would likely have been.

The circumstances of this request may be hard to discover, but perhaps when the process of digitizing the S&W factory records is complete we will be able to find something more about this gun.

Two follow-up questions if I may.

First, accdg. to Pate, with only a few exceptions, S&W did not appear to have paid any attention to serial numbers. "Unlike Colt, S&W did not deliver revolvers in numerical order."

This seems contrary to most business standards, as S&W would be at a disadvantage it seems to me regarding quality control, accounting and accountability. Care to comment?

Second, as you say, DC the exact circumstances of this delivery may be hard to discover until the digitizing of the S&W factory records is complete. ... Any idea when that will be?

Thanks,

Carl
 
"First, accdg. to Pate, with only a few exceptions, S&W did not appear to have paid any attention to serial numbers. "Unlike Colt, S&W did not deliver revolvers in numerical order."

This seems contrary to most business standards, as S&W would be at a disadvantage it seems to me regarding quality control, accounting and accountability. Care to comment?"

As far as civilian sales go, S&W would build their firearms and then store them. When, say a 4" blue Military & Police was ordered, an employee would go to the vault and retrieve one. It was "Last in, first out." Less popular firearms tended to linger in the rear of the vault.

I believe military contact guns were shipped in closer numerical order.
 
Well boys, the Model 1917 that I spoke of in this thread sold today for $2,400 + 17.5% buyer's premium.

Rather pricey !!

Carl
 
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