Sipsey Street Irregulars: A bit about Mrs. Bloomberg

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

A bit about Mrs. Bloomberg

Close examination of Charlotte with a jeweler's loupe shows that the lock plates on either side are marked "T.Barker." The barrels are marked "Belgian laminated steel." A quick search revealed this:

Shotguns marked 'T. BARKER' were sold by various hardware store and catalog stores in c.1880-1910 (or so). They were generally imported from Belgium and distributed by the H&D Folsom Co. Look for the telltale Belgian proofmark underneath the barrels and on the water table (flat part of the frame where the barrels meet the frame). The proofmark is the letter 'E' over 'LG' in an oval or variant thereof.

These shotguns were designed to be utility shotguns and were low priced when they were new. Nothing has changed today, and their value is strictly whatever somebody will pay to have something hanging on the wall. Under no circumstances should a T. BARKER shotgun be fired. The barrel construction is almost certainly a twisted-wire construction and the pressure curve of modern shells, even "low-brass" can certainly cause the barrels to come apart.

You can see them priced at $200-300 on some auction sites, but they rarely sell. A more realistic value would be $100-150 in really good condition. I have had mine checked by a good gunsmith and do shoot hand loaded, full length brass shells loaded with light black powder loads. NEVER shoot smokeless shells in these guns.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: It's good that there's a shotgun in our movement with Bloomberg's name on it!

Death before slavery!

Comrade X; February 17, 2015 at 11:01 AM
Anonymous said...: In general:

smokeless powder + damascus barrel = more excitement than you need or want.; February 17, 2015 at 4:54 PM
Anonymous said...: Mike, this is anonymous in TN. who commented on this yesterday, regarding my black bear in Wi. and pulling both triggers at the same time. This gun is exactly the one I have, and did the research on it as well many years ago. It is hanging over my fireplace as you suggest, and is a conversation piece because of its history. Have no idea where my dad got it, but was probably 80 0r 90 years ago. Take care!!:); February 18, 2015 at 8:43 AM
ag42b said...: A Swedish company called Gyttorp used to specialize in shells for old shotguns, including 2 1/2 inch shells for old European makes.

I don't know if they still make them or not, but my old Husqvarnas functioned well with them, Damascus barrel or not.; February 19, 2015 at 9:58 AM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

A bit about Mrs. Bloomberg

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