Old Spanish Made Gun?

[conleythomas]

I recently received a handgun from my Granddad, I have not been able to find any information on it. It looks old to me, but I have no idea how old. It is a .38 Caliber It is a double action with a fixed cylinder. This is a faraway picture:

The gun says it was "MADE IN SPAIN" It has a symbol that looks like a Lion to me, on the: Cylinder, Frame, and the Barrel. It has a crown on the barrel. It says "P.N" on the frame. It also has a symbol that looks like a coat of arms. Here is a picture:

The Bottom of the handle has some markings on it that i can barely read. "BAR" and "192 (with a bigger wierd looking 6 behind it)" and "1283"

I am curious about this gun. If you have any information on it please share it with me.

 

[Guate_shooter]

Its a 1926 Eiber Revolver copy of an S&W, I will do some more research on it.

 

[Guate_shooter]

You can look at the proof marks here
https://store.bluebookinc.com/Info/PDF/Firearm/Proofmarks.pdf

I also found 3 small write ups on diferent forums that might be interesting to you.

Quote:
As much Smith as the Colt, profusely was copied in the Basque country. The quality of the same varied of good to repugnant. The greater tip of clones occurred between years 1910 to the 1930, and some of the manufacturers were: Aldazábal, Orueta hnos., Ariola hnos., Barrenechea and Gallastegui, Beistegui hnos., Spider and company., Errasti hnos., Gaztañaga, Guisaola hnos., Trocaola - Aranzabal and company., the Orbea Industrialist, Eulogio Arostegui (aside from copying S& W, made a beautiful copy of the pistol Mauser 1896 with selector of shot to Super bursts called Blue [Azul]), etc., etc., etc…

The list is interminable, and so we can affirm unequivocally that the national sport of the north of Spain was, at the beginning of century, to copy American revolvers. If the original ones are ugly, imagine the imitations…

The consequence of this indiscriminate robbery of designs is that the S& W " began to bring between their inscriptions the words; Registradas" marks; in correct a Castilian. A curiosity of the S& Testeado W is that until in the hammer, under the spur reads " Reg. U.S. Pat. Off." (Registered in the office of patents of the USA).

The box of the Colt, also printed in the language of Cervantes, clarifies in its cover that not only the revolver, but the handles, the inscriptions, the name of the mark and the logo, are registered with their corresponding number of patents.

Dr. Elido Cividini Doctor
Mat. 12.685


Quote:

# 12093 - Manuel Escodin
1/19/2008
Walker
Manual Escodine Bar - 38 Special - Stainless Steel -

engraved with leaf patterns What is the date it was manufactured, what is the value, is there original grips available?

Answer:
Walker, I had to think about this one for a while but finally my brain unfroze and I realized that your revolver is a Manuel Escodin of Eibar Spain. I am not sure how that you came up with the unusual spacing in the name and it threw me for a minute or two.

There is not a lot of information on Manuel Escodin of Eibar, the only facts that are known for sure is that he produced inexpensive low quality revolvers chambered in .32 or ,38 Special, from 1924 to 1931. The Escodin was a near-perfect copy of the S&W Military & Police Model and it sported a badly stamped ornate coat-of-arms trademark on the left side of the frame.

I very much doubt that your revolver is stainless steel, it is probably plated with something like nickel or chrome. It has been reported in a major gunsmithing text book that the metals used in many of the old Spanish revolvers of this vintage is of very low quality making them dangerous to fire. Values for Spanish S&W copies is very low, probably in the $50 range if you can find anyone willing to buy one. I would advise against wasting time or money in a search for replacement grips. Marc

Quote:

For an Eibar handgun from 1926 the .38 Special is one of the hottest cartridges you'll see. Those factories were used to making guns for much more mild cartridges such as .25 and .32ACP autos and weaker .38 cartridges like the .38 Largo that were popular in Europe. If it were me I would stick to very low power loads, maybe cowboy action loads. Even then it could be dangerous to fire though. No way to tell when you can't trust the metal.

Also while I'm thinking about it you may also want to make sure that your gun is indeed in .38 Special and not 38 Largo. I'm saying that because .38 Special rounds will usually chamber in a .38 Largo revolver. However it is not safe to shoot in a .38 Largo gun. The .38 Largo round is a much lower pressure round, in fact I think it began as a black powder round.

 

[herohog]

.38 Largo? Is this sort of a rimmed 9mm Largo cartridge?

 

[herohog]

Google is my friend!

.38 Largo--was the .38 Long Colt as known throughout Latin America. It consisted of a rimmed, straight-walled case with a length of 1.02 inches topped with a 150-grain lead bullet that traveled at about 770 fps.

Cartucho cal. 9mm Largo--was based upon a 23mm straight-walled, rimless case containing a 125-grain FMJ. bullet moving at 1120 fps.

 

[jessopher]

I have one I got from my grandfather that is a smith copy in 32-20. It functions fine but from all accounts it is advised I do not shoot it. Now your pistol looks nice and if it is .38s&w that is a pretty weak cartridge, I might try shooting it if the cylinder did not feel loose with alot of play and the timing seemed correct.

 

[conleythomas]

Thank you for the information! So you think that even if this gun was cleaned up it would not be worth very much?

 

[herohog]

$50 max for a wall hanger at best. From what I read, you can't trust the steel AT ALL with a .38 in those... the steel is just too iffy.

 

[conleythomas]

OK thank you. So I was just curious about the lion looking symbol stamped all over the gun, what does it signify?

 

[herohog]

Makers or proof marks? Somewhere in my Google search of ".38 Largo" I came across descriptions... go dig a little. It's out there...

 

[Guate_shooter]

I gave you the link already for the proof marks, most of the time they will tell you year that it was built, wharehouse that it was built at, which gunsmith worked on it, what model it was in case there were diferent variants, what caliber, and the options that it came with from the factory.