I am restoring a 5 shot top break revolver that I would like more info on. It is marked 'U.S. Revolver CO' and it's serial number is 91856. The barrel is 3.25' long. It appears to be chambered for.38. The hard plastic grips have 'US' at the top. Any help on telling the story of this old.

United States Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company, Inc. (U.S. Fire Arms Mfg. Co., USFA) was a privately held firearms-manufacturing firm based in Hartford, Connecticut. Until 2011, it was known for producing single action revolvers, which were clones of the Colt Single Action Army revolver.^[1] The factory was located 'Under the Blue Dome,' in the East Armory building of the former Colt Armory complex, where Colt's Manufacturing Company produced many of their classic firearms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In 2011, the company ceased production of replica colt revolvers, and publicly rebranded itself as ZiPFactory.com, based on its titular USFA ZiP .22 firearm. The company formally dissolved in January 2017,^[2] and the company was the last firearms maker in the Colt's Armory Complex. The site is now seeking Historic Landmark Status.

History[edit]

The company used to maintain an 'Old Armory Custom Shop' which produced custom firearms to order. These firearms featured expensive traditional materials and techniques such as engraving or hand engraving, gold inlay, damascening, case hardening, polishing, and fine metal plating, or other finish.^{[citation needed]}

USFA was the only firearm company still manufacturing in the city of Hartford, Connecticut, when it closed in 2011.^[3] Due to space limitations, the company built an additional production location outside of the Blue Dome in order to accommodate their CNC machinery.

• Great deals on Gun Parts for U.S. Trick out or upgrade your firearm with the largest gun parts selection at eBay.com. Fast & Free shipping on many items!
• Here we present a “U.S. Revolver Company” Top-Break Double Action.38 S&W Revolver, made circa 1920 by Iver Johnson. This double action only revolver was designed after the very popular Smith & Wesson revolvers of the late 19th Century.
• Description: U S Revolver Company nickel plated 38 caliber five shot break - open revolver with 5 inch barrel. US logo on grips. Good overall condition. Comes with leather flap holster in good condition with IVER JOHNSON, BOSTON embossed in an oval on the center of the flap.
• Barrel Catch Plunger. Manufacturer: IVER JOHNSON. Model: OLD MODEL SAFETY HAMMER AUTO REVOLVER, US REVOLVER TOP BREAK. Product #: 524480E.

USFA had an active role in firearms politics in the United States, and issued a statement on the District of Columbia v. Heller court decision on the interpretation of the Second Amendment.^[4]

In 2011, USFA abandoned their production of Colt revolver replicas and went to the exclusive manufacturing of their ZIP .22 pistol.^[5] The ZIP .22 proved to be an unreliable firearm and lacked consumer interest. As a result, USFA is now out of business.^[2]

Products[edit]

USFA was best known for producing firearms based on the Colt Single Action Army revolver, Colt M1911 semi-automatic pistol, and rifles such as the Colt Lightning Carbine.^[6]

Exhibitions[edit]

Through January 1, 2009, USFA guns were displayed in the exhibit Guns West! at the National Rifle Association's own National Firearms Museum.^{[7][dead link]} A USFA Single Action Army revolver was given by United States Vice President Dick Cheney to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.^[8]

USFA's 2007 SHOT Show exhibit in Orlando, Florida recalled an exhibit displayed at the 1876 Philadelphia, PA Centennial Exhibition in the same month George Armstrong Custer perished at Little Bighorn.^[9]

Us Revolver Company Wiki

Use in film[edit]

Hollywood firearms expert Thell Reed selected USFA to provide revolvers for several films for which he served as key armorer:

• 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
• Shanghai Noon (2000)

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Rees, Clair (May 1, 1999). 'Swords and Plowshares'. Guns: 56.
2. ^ ^abUSFA Zip 22: How a Garbage Gun Destroyed A Good Company (YouTube). Forgotten Weapons. 14 September 2018. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
3. ^Clapp, Wiley (July 2003). 'The High-Tech Peacemaker: U.S. Fire Arms applies modern gunmaking to a classic'(PDF). Shooting Illustrated (reproduced at USFirearms.com). p. 39. Archived from the original(PDF) on 10 February 2012. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
4. ^'U.S. Fire Arms Mfg. Co., Inc. (USFA) Hartford's Largest Gunmaker — Supports Landmark Supreme Court Decision in Federal D.C. Heller Gun Ban Case'(PDF). usfirearms.com. 26 June 2008. Archived from the original(PDF) on 10 February 2012.
5. ^'The Truth About Guns GUN REVIEWS GEAR REVIEWS GUNS FOR BEGINNERS FACTS ABOUT GUNS OPEN SEARCH FORM Search for: Search … Search Gun Review: USFA ZiP .22LR'. The Truth About Guns. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
6. ^Taffin, John. Auto Retro: USFA, the Leader in 'Cowboy' Guns, Steps into the 20th Century, Guns Magazine, May, 2007, p. 58-61
7. ^http://www.nra.org/Article.aspx?id=10561
8. ^'Custom Shop Guns'. usfirearms.com. Archived from the original on 17 May 2012.
9. ^Eifling, Sam. Exhibitors in an 'Arms Race, ESPNOutdoors.com. 12 January 2007, retrieved 10 July 2008

Us Revolver Company Serial Number Chart

Iver Johnson was an American firearms, bicycle, and motorcycle manufacturer from 1871 to 1993. The company shared the same name as its founder, Norwegian-born Iver Johnson (1841–1895).

The name was resold and in 2006 Iver Johnson Arms opened, but does not have any parts or information relating to the pre-1993 company, and represents a continuation of it in name only.^[1]

Iver Johnson[edit]

Iver Johnson was born in 1841^[2] in Nordfjord, Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway.^[3] He was educated as a gunsmith in Bergen in 1857, and had a gun store in Oslo. Johnson emigrated from Norway to Worcester, Massachusetts, United States in 1863, and continued his work as a gunsmith by trade and an inventor in his spare time. Seeking new and creative uses for his partially idle manufacturing equipment after the American Civil War, he worked not only gunsmithing locally in Fitchburg, but also providing designs and work to other firearms companies; notably making pepper-box pistols for Allen & Wheelock.^{[4][clarification needed]}

On April 9, 1868, Johnson married Mary Elizabeth (née Speirs, born January 1847) in Worcester;^[5][6][7][8] and the couple had three sons, Frederick Iver, John Lovell and Walter Olof, and two daughters, Mary Louise and Nellie.^{[citation needed]}

Johnson Bye & Company[edit]

In 1871, Johnson merged his and Martin Bye's gunsmithing operations to form the Johnson Bye & Company. Beginning in 1876, Johnson and Bye filed jointly for, and received, multiple new firearms features and firearms feature improvement patents. Their primary revenues came from the sale of their self designed and manufactured inexpensive models of revolvers.^[9]

The company's name changed to Iver Johnson & Company in 1883, upon Johnson's purchase of Bye's interest, but Bye continued working in the firearm industry for the remainder of his life.^[9]

Iver Johnson's Arms & Cycle Works[edit]

The company's name changed again to Iver Johnson's Arms & Cycle Works in 1891, when the company relocated to Fitchburg, Massachusetts, (sometimes incorrectly referred to as 'Fitzburg') in order to have better and larger manufacturing facilities. The company attracted a number of talented immigrant machinists and designers to its ranks, including O.F. Mossberg and Andrew Fyrberg, who would go on to invent the company's top-latching strap mechanism and the Hammer-the-Hammer transfer bar safety system used on the company's popular line of top-break safety revolvers.^[10][11]

Iver Johnson died of tuberculosis in 1895,^[2] and his sons took over the business. Frederick Iver, (born 10/2/1871),^{[6][7][8][12]} John Lovell (born 6/26/1876),^{[6][7][8][13][14]} and Walter Olof (born August 1878),^[6][7][8] each had vastly different levels of involvement in the company ranging from executive leadership to barely any involvement at all. They shepherded the company through a phase of expansion, as bicycle operations grew, then converted to motorcycle manufacturing and sales. They also saw the growth of the firearms business and the eventual restructuring of the company to focus on firearms and related business as they divested non-firearms concerns, such as the motorcycle business, in the face of growing firearms demand, World War I's armaments industry expansion, and other factors. As family ownership waned and outside investment via publicly traded stock and mergers/acquisitions/partnerships took hold, the company changed ownership and moved several times during its operation.^[15]

The company eventually dropped 'Cycle Works' from its moniker when that part of the business was shut down. The business successfully weathered the Great Depression (in part thanks to higher rates of armed robbery, which helped maintain demand for personal firearms) and was buoyed by the dramatic increase in the market for arms leading up to and during World War II.^[15]

After World War II, the company's introduction of new firearms slowed to a trickle. Increasingly, company fortunes depended upon sales of its increasingly outmoded revolvers and single-barrel shotguns. Without new research and development, most firearms changes were limited to cosmetic updates of existing designs.^[15]

As a result of changes in ownership, the company had the first of two major relocations in 1971 when it moved to New Jersey. It moved again to Jacksonville, Arkansas, and was jointly owned by Lynn Lloyd and Lou Imperato, who also owned the Henry brand name, before it finally ceased trading under its own name in 1993, at which time it was owned by American Military Arms Corporation (AMAC).^[16]

Iver Johnson firearm models[edit]

Iver Johnson nomenclature refers to its top-break revolvers as Safety Automatics. These are revolvers, not semi-automatic pistols, which they largely pre-date. The term 'Safety Automatic' refers to Iver Johnson's Hammer-the-Hammer transfer bar safety system ('safety') and the automatic ejection of cartridges upon breaking open the revolvers ('automatic').^[9]

Safety automatic[edit]

Standard models with external hammer:

• First Model (1894–1895), single post latch system
• Second Model (1896–1908), double post latch system
• Third Model (1909–1941), double post latch system, adapted for smokeless powder

Safety automatic hammerless[edit]

• First Model (1895–1896), single post latch
• Second Model (1897–1908), safety lever added to face of trigger
• Third Model a.k.a. New Model (1909–1941), no safety lever on trigger, adapted for smokeless powder

Assassinations[edit]

William McKinley assassination[edit]

On September 6, 1901, American steelworker and anarchist Leon Czolgoszshot President William McKinley at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York with an Iver Johnson .32 caliber Safety Automatic revolver (serial number 463344).^[17][18] McKinley died nearly eight days later, at 2:15 am on the 14th of September. The revolver is currently on display at the Buffalo History Museum in Buffalo.^[19]

Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted assassination[edit]

In 1933, Giuseppe Zangara shot and killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak at a political event in Miami, in an apparent attempt to assassinate president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. Zangara was using a .32 revolver by the United States Revolver Company, a subsidiary of Iver Johnson.^[20]

Robert Kennedy assassination[edit]

Jordanian Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Presidential candidate United States SenatorRobert F. Kennedy with an eight-shot Iver Johnson .22 caliber Cadet 55-A revolver (serial number H-53725, Trial-People's Exhibit #6, misidentified in trial testimony as S/N H-18602) at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California on June 5, 1968; Kennedy died the following day at Good Samaritan Hospital.^[21] The revolver, as well as the official police files, reports, interviews, ballistics reports, bullet fragments, and other important evidence related to Kennedy's assassination, is currently housed in the California State Archives in Sacramento.^[22]

Bicycles[edit]

Iver Johnson bicycles are classic examples of early American bicycles, and during the bicycle boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had a very productive bicycle manufacturing and sales line of business. Today, Iver Johnsons are considered to be 'classics' by vintage bicycle collectors, and are considered to be especially pleasing from an aesthetic point of view. O.F. Mossberg worked in the bicycle plant and then started his own firearms factory.^[11]

Even when they were new, I-J's were marketed and had a reputation for being very graceful looking, well built, and engineered for performance. Iver Johnson sponsored the career of bicycle racing champion Major Taylor beginning in 1900.^[23] The most noted I-J model was the truss-bridge frame which featured a curved tube under the top tube to strengthen the frame for use on the rough roads of the early twentieth century.^[24] Bicycle production ceased in 1940 with the buildup of arms production prior to World War II.^[15]

Today, Iver Johnson bicycles are highly collectible, well sought after, and relatively rare compared to most other major manufacturer's products from that time. An Iver Johnson bicycle is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in the America on the Move exhibit.^[25]

Motorcycles[edit]

Launched in Fitchburg, MA in 1907, The Iver Johnson Company motorcycle division was born from the conversion of a line of business that had been manufacturing bicycles for some 23 years prior to that point. Ultimately, the arms division of the business was growing so rapidly to meet demand that management decided to focus on that market and as a result motorcycle operations closed in 1916 (varying sources claim the last year as being 1915, with 1916 seeing only the sales of remaining 1915 produced inventory), bringing to an end 33 years of total cycle operations (23 for bicycles, and another 10 for motorcycle and run-off bicycle business).^[26]

According to Jeffry L'H. Tank'sHistory of the Motorcycle, Iver Johnson advertised their machines as 'Mechanical Perfection,' a boast that was not entirely unbelievable given the number of advanced design features in especially their later models, such as dual crankshafts, nickel-alloy machined parts, chain drive, and a hand-operated three-speed gearbox. Among collectors and researchers who have the benefit of hindsight, Iver-Johnsons, such as the 1915 Model 15-7 along with Scotts, are the finest examples of motorcycle engineering of that era.^[27]

End of Iver Johnson and revival of name[edit]

In 2006 the name was reused as Iver Johnson Arms Incorporated in Florida as manufacturer and importer of firearms (from Philippines, Turkey and Belgium), including 1911-style semi-automatic pistols, but not related to the old Iver Johnson lines.^[28] The new firm was renamed from Squires Bingham International, founded in 1973.^[29]

References[edit]

1. ^Iver Johnson Arms accessed 1 April 2013
2. ^ ^abMassachusetts deaths, 1841-1915, Familysearch, https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NW7D-6LF
3. ^National Archives and Records Administration, 1872 October 30, Index to New England Naturalization Petitions, 1791-1906, serial M1299, roll 79.
4. ^The Story of Allen & Wheelock Firearms. H. H. Thomas, author. Pioneer Press, Incorporated. 1991)
5. ^National Archives and Records Administration, 1870, August 18. 1870 U.S. census, population schedules: Worcester Ward 4, Worcester, Massachusetts, roll M593_658: p. 223B: image 483: lines 13-20.
6. ^ ^abcdNational Archives and Records Administration, 1880, June 8. 1880 U.S. census, population schedules: Worcester, Worcester, Massachusetts, roll 567: p. 122D: enumeration district 884: image 0542: lines 22-27.
7. ^ ^abcdNational Archives and Records Administration, 1900, June 6. 1900 U.S. census, population schedules: Fitchburg Ward 2, Worcester, Massachusetts, roll T623_691: p. 9A: enumeration district: 1609: lines 13-14 & 20-23.
8. ^ ^abcdNational Archives and Records Administration, 1910, April 25. 1910 U.S. census, population schedules: Fitchburg Ward 2, Worcester, Massachusetts, roll T624_628: p. 10A: enumeration district 1728: image: 158: lines 70-76.
9. ^ ^abcHogg, Ian; Walter, John (29 August 2004). Pistols of the World. David & Charles. pp. 183–185. ISBN0-87349-460-1.
10. ^I. Johnson & O. Mossberg, U.S. Patent No. 511,620, Dec. 26, 1893
11. ^ ^ab'The Mossberg Story'. Gun Digest (17 ed.). Chicago: The Gun Digest Co. 1963. pp. 120–124.
12. ^National Archives and Records Administration, 1902, May 27. Passport Applications, 1795–1905: Suffolk County, Massachusetts, roll M1372, application #57156.
13. ^National Archives and Records Administration, 1904, January 18. Passport Applications, 1795–1905: Suffolk County, Massachusetts, roll M1372, application #81238.
14. ^National Archives and Records Administration, 1918, September 12. United States, Selective Service System, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918: Fitchburg, Worcester, Massachusetts, roll 1685193.
15. ^ ^abcdFjestad, S. P. (1 April 2008). Blue Book of Gun Values. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 323. ISBN978-1-886768-75-8.
16. ^Iver Johnson's Arms & Cycle Works Inc. (Direct Investments, Ltd.)
17. ^Taylerson, A. W. F. (1971), The Revolver, 1889-1914, Crown Publishers, p. 60
18. ^Johns, A. Wesley (1970), The man who shot McKinley, A. S. Barnes, p. 97
19. ^'Collections Highlights'. Buffalo History Museum.
20. ^Robert Sherrill (February 1975). The Saturday night special: and other guns with which Americans won the West, protected bootleg franchises, slew wildlife, robbed countless banks, shot husbands purposely and by mistake, and killed presidents--together with the debate over continuing same. Penguin Books. p. 167.
21. ^Moldea, Dan E. (1995). The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy: An Investigation of Motive, Means, and Opportunity. W.W. Norton. p. 69. ISBN978-0-393-03791-3.
22. ^LLC, Filiquarian Publishing; Investigation, Federal Bureau of (2007). Robert F. Kennedy Assassination: The FBI Files. Filiquarian Publishing, LLC. p. 1. ISBN978-1-59986-254-5.
23. ^Brill, Marlene Targ (1 September 2007). Marshall 'Major' Taylor: World Champion Bicyclist, 1899-191. Twenty-First Century Books. p. 70. ISBN978-0-8225-6610-6.
24. ^Popular Science. Bonnier Corporation. December 1924. p. 135. ISSN0161-7370.
25. ^School Media Quarterly. 3. American Association of School Librarians. 1974. p. 166.
26. ^Hatfield, Jerry (8 February 2006). Standard Catalog of American Motorcycles 1898-1981: The Only Book to Fully Chronicle Every Bike Ever Built. Iola, Wisconsin: Krause Publications. pp. 362–363. ISBN0-87349-949-2.
27. ^Tank, J (2004). History of the Motorcycle: From the First Motorized Bicycles to the Powerful and Sophisticated Superbikes of Today. Parragon. ISBN978-1-4054-3952-7.
28. ^http://iverjohnsonarms.com/
29. ^http://www.m1carbinesinc.com/carbine_ijd.html

Other sources[edit]

• Goforth, W.E. Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Works Firearms 1871-1993 (Gun Show Books Publishing. 2006) ISBN978-0-9787086-0-3
• Thomas, H. H. The Story of Allen & Wheelock Firearms (Pioneer Press, Incorporated. 1991) ISBN978-0-913150-73-3

External links[edit]

• Iver Johnson firearms - armscollectors.com