trigger safety on old Iver Johnson revolver?

[max popenker]

while browsing the 'net, i ve found an old .32cal Iver Johnson revolver with concealed hammer; what attracted my attention was an apparent trigger safety (marked by an arrow on picture below)

Here's my questions:
1) was it standard on some IJ revolvers?
2) if yes, when it first appeared?

the pic of whole revolver can be found at this link: http://www.cherrys.com/stokpics/17400.jpg

Thanks

 

[Old Fuff]

Well Gaston Glock didn't invent it...

Iver Johnson was issued a U.S. patent (# 339,301) on April 6, 1886. Thereafter it was standard on most of the "hammerless style" pocket revolvers they manufactured, which numbered into the hundreds of thousands. Production continued to about 1940 or 41 and the start of World War Two. They did not resume production of this style of revolver after the war.

Iver Johnson also invented and patented the transfer bar safety, now commonly used in many revolvers, especially those made by Ruger and Taurus.

 

[deadin]

Iver Johnson also invented and patented the transfer bar safety

I can remember seeing the "Hammer the Hammer" IJ ads that showed a depiction of a guy beating on the hammer with a hammer to show how safe it was.

Dean

 

[Old Fuff]

Yup, and the transfer bar safety was the reason why one could "hammer the hammer" and not get an accidental discharge.

During the late 1880's well into the early 1940's before gun control laws became popular in some states, people commonaly carried small .32 or .38 top-break revolvers for personal protection. Smith & Wesson was the "quality" maker of such guns, but firms such as Herrington & Richardson, Forehand & Wadsworth and Iver Johnson out-produced S&W by many hundreds of thousands of guns.

One problem, especially with guns with exposed hammers was accidental discharges caused when the revolver was accidentally dropped, or the hammer was otherwise hit by a solid blow. It should be remembered that the usual practice by John Q. Citizen was to simply drop the gun into one's pocket. Consequently the various manufacturers made a big thing about the safety devices they offered - good, bad or indifferent.

Very seldom do today's gunmakers come up with something that is truly new...

 

[max popenker]

Old Fluff,
many thanks! the patent number info is exactly what i've hoped for.

I knew that Gaston borowed that trigger safety from someone else, but i thought it was the Sauer "Behorden modell" of 1930...

Those IJ innvoations were pretty nice, especially for the late 19th century.

 

[Old Fuff]

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries Iver Johnson was a major player in the U.S. pocket revolver market, and they out-produced Smith & Wesson by substantial numbers. So they weren't a small company, but a large one with a big engineering department. They took out all kinds of patents for revolver designs. The patent rights have long expired but some of the features, like the transfer bar safety and trigger-safety are still used today.

Gaston Glock may have seen it on an earlier semi-automatic pistol, but I'd bet they'd got the idea from a Iver Johnson patent or revolver. Everybody looks at everyone else's patents in the gun business.