Rollin White Patent Information?

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I am familiar with the general history of the Rollin White patent, which White licensed to Smith & Wesson to produce revolvers with bored through chambers to accept metallic ammunition. I am aware that until the patent expired around 1872 S&W was the only company legally allowed to manufacture revolvers with bored through chambers. What puzzles me is how Colt and Remington got around the White patent while they were producing cartridge conversion cylinders for their percussion revolvers. At least in Colt's case, this was not a simple question of retrofitting old percussion revolvers with new cylinders, the Richards conversion and Richards Mason conversions were produced with new parts, they were not old revolvers sent back to the factory for retrofitting.

Can anybody shed any light on how Colt got around the White patent when producing 'conversion' revolvers with bored through chambers?

Thanks

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I am familiar with the general history of the Rollin White patent, which White licensed to Smith & Wesson to produce revolvers with bored through chambers to accept metallic ammunition. I am aware that until the patent expired around 1872 S&W was the only company legally allowed to manufacture revolvers with bored through chambers. What puzzles me is how Colt and Remington got around the White patent while they were producing cartridge conversion cylinders for their percussion revolvers. At least in Colt's case, this was not a simple question of retrofitting old percussion revolvers with new cylinders, the Richards conversion and Richards Mason conversions were produced with new parts, they were not old revolvers sent back to the factory for retrofitting.

Can anybody shed any light on how Colt got around the White patent when producing 'conversion' revolvers with bored through chambers?

Thanks

 

[BRush]

I believe the Rollin White Patent expired on April 3, 1869. Until then neither Colt nor
Remington marketed a cartridge revolver that infringed on the R W Patent. Before 1869 got around the R W Patent with its Thuer Conversions which were based on Alexander Thuer's Patent for a front loading cartridge.

 

[H Richard]

I am not all that familiar with the dates, but I have a copy of a U S Congressional hearing where White tired to get more $ for his patent after S&W had been producing guns for several years. It is an Adobe document, and I can't figure out how to post, but I could email you a copy. It may have some information that would help you.

 

[handejector]

I am not sure what Colt did, but Remington signed a contract with S&W in 1868 and paid royalties.
See Neal & Jinks, rev ed, pg 260.

 

[Thuer]

Yes. The patent expiered in april 1869.
After that it was free for every gunmaker to build a cartridge revolver with bored true cilinder. In 1869 Colt was building their Thuer conversion revolvers.
The first bigbore Colt revolver was the 1872 then came the conversions.

 

[BRush]

Ok, I can't resist the opportunity to show Colt's progression of 44 Cal conversions and cartridge revolvers after the Rollin White Patent expired and before their introduction of the SAA to the civilian market in 1873. Colt did this while S&W spent most of its capacity developing and producing the Model 3 for the Russian contracts and essentially ignored the domestic civilian market for large caliber cartridge revolvers.
The revolvers in sequence from top left column down then right column down are:
(1) A Long Cylinder Conversion in 44 Long RF(Circa 1869),
(2) An Open Top in 44 Henry, an original design, not a comversion(1871-1872)),
(3) A Type I Richards, Original Cartridge Richards, in 44 Colt(from 1873 to 1876);
(4) A Type II Richards percussion conversion in 44 Colt(1875 - early 1880's), and
(5) A Richards Mason Conversion in 44 Colt(est. 1200 produced concurrently with the Open Top during 1871-1872).

Because they were much cheaper than the SAA, especially if you had your own percussion 1860 Army converted, conversions were widely used in the West well into the 1880's - well after the SAA became available.

As an aside, I won't argue whether the Long Cylinder conversion was done by the Colt factory or an independent gun smith or smiths, who may or may not have worked with the factory. Some have theorized that the Long Cylinder Conversion was an experimental conversion commissioned by Colt.
Without discovery of new information, we may never know. I understand there are 4 versions of this conversion and about 60 examples are known to exist.

 

[Thuer]

Thanks for the info and beautiful picture.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Thanks everyone for the information, and thanks BRush for the great photos. I don't know where I got it into my head that the White patent expired in 1872, perhaps because the Colt SAA came out in 1873. I did find a reference in one of my Colt books to the patent expiring in 1869, so that does make more sense regarding conversions being manufactured without violating the patent.

 

[H Richard]

After my post above I had a request for the info from a H Bouwman. I tried to send, but the email is "stuck" in my outbox and I can't delete it, send it, or do anything with it. I am able to send emails so I don't know if the intended reciepient did or did not receive it. If you did not, email me again and let me know. I'll try and send again. It is in a PDF file and somehow this got stuck I'm still trying to get it out of the outbox.