Author Topic: Mier Plains Rifle  (Read 1520 times)

UncleBob

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Mier Plains Rifle
« on: January 08, 2022, 06:35:35 PM »

   This is a recent auction purchase. Plains rifle by J (?) Mier. date of 1867 carved into the stock in front of the trigger guard, approx 40 cal, 
   36 1/4" barrel, Silver fore sight, Curly Maple stock, with a pewter nose. Rod looks to be a replacement.
   Lock has a worn stamp, but I can just read 'Warranted' at the bottom and ' --Os & Co at the top (Kelker & Bros?) Writing cast into the inside of the patch box lid.










Offline T*O*F

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2022, 11:37:49 PM »
Quote
Writing cast into the inside of the patch box lid.
It says TRYON.  I've seen several of these.  I think he sold castings out of Philly.
Dave Kanger

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Offline Shreckmeister

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2022, 01:51:48 AM »
Nice little halfstock. Good find
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

Offline mr. no gold

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2022, 04:14:59 AM »
Mier's work is pleasing to my eye. He was an individualist apparently, as he never seemed to make the same gun twice. His rifles seem to pop up all over the country. I have an S. Mier that came out of Rocky Ford, Colorado some time ago. Use patterns suggested that it was likely a Western Trails piece. You made a nice find and we thank you for showing it here on the Forum.
Dick

Offline Sequatchie Rifle

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2022, 04:25:33 AM »
I believe Meir was a hardware company and ordered the rifles and sold them.
"We fight not for glory, nor riches nor honors, but for freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life.” Declaration of Arbroath, 1320

Offline JTR

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2022, 05:57:10 PM »
I believe Meir was a hardware company and ordered the rifles and sold them.

Hmmm, Ordered the rifles and their name signed on the barrel as in the second picture?
John Robbins

Offline Shreckmeister

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2022, 06:24:07 PM »
I believe Meir was a hardware company and ordered the rifles and sold them.
   What leads you in that direction?  I’ve seen/handled a couple dozen and all have different adornment but follow a similar architecture. The census records have him as gunsmith I believe. Who would he have ordered such an array of them from?
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

Offline mr. no gold

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2022, 08:09:10 PM »
And, his father Jacob was a recognized gun maker in Somerset County. Good questions Schreck. That he purchased components from Tryon, and perhaps others was a somewhat standard practice in the later days of muzzle loading and likely much earlier. Bedford, Somerset and Fulton counties seemed to have been somewhat behind the times when compared with other counties for a time and so access to a load of rifles would have been harder to come by. That is not to say that he did not purchase the work of others, but from whom? There is no maker in these counties that made a half stock gun routinely such as this one until Mier came along. And,most of his work that I have seen is of full stocked rifles.
Dick

UncleBob

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2022, 10:44:54 PM »

  Many thanks for your comments; I have another American Long Rifle and wonder how they ended up over here in the UK? There doesn't seem much interest in them here, which can make the prices quite inviting.

Offline Sequatchie Rifle

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2022, 01:27:19 AM »
I believe Meir was a hardware company and ordered the rifles and sold them.

I stand corrected.  The photos don’t show up for me. The Meier I’m thinking about spelled his name “Meier” and his first name was Adolphus. He was located in St. Louis. Name was stamped on the top flat with his address.

My apologies.
"We fight not for glory, nor riches nor honors, but for freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life.” Declaration of Arbroath, 1320

Offline mr. no gold

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2022, 03:15:11 AM »
Bill, no apology necessary. Lots of confusion in those times and you are correct about the St. Louis' Meier.' He was a successful merchant and sold shotguns and rifles under his name that he purchased outside. Samuel Mier could do some wild raised carving when he wanted to and may have been the last of the gunmakers to do so since he worked mostly after 1850.
Dick

Offline JHeath

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2022, 08:22:49 PM »

  Many thanks for your comments; I have another American Long Rifle and wonder how they ended up over here in the UK? There doesn't seem much interest in them here, which can make the prices quite inviting.

Maybe souvenirs taken home by British soldiers, or later by visiting 19th Cent European hunters. There were a number of those, some wrote books. On another thread Mattox Forge and I discussed visiting hunters re-fitting their British rifles American-style with crescent buttplates. Like this:

http://www.hunting-heritage.com/blog/index.php/2018/11/22/ruxtons-other-rifle/

I read an anecdote about a captured American rifleman in the Revolution, sent with his rifle to England and made to demonstrate the range at which sharpshooters could take down officers.

American rifles probably came through Canada too.

UncleBob

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Re: Mier Plains Rifle
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2022, 10:35:35 PM »

  Many thanks for your comments; I have another American Long Rifle and wonder how they ended up over here in the UK? There doesn't seem much interest in them here, which can make the prices quite inviting.

Maybe souvenirs taken home by British soldiers, or later by visiting 19th Cent European hunters. There were a number of those, some wrote books. On another thread Mattox Forge and I discussed visiting hunters re-fitting their British rifles American-style with crescent buttplates. Like this:

http://www.hunting-heritage.com/blog/index.php/2018/11/22/ruxtons-other-rifle/

I read an anecdote about a captured American rifleman in the Revolution, sent with his rifle to England and made to demonstrate the range at which sharpshooters could take down officers.

American rifles probably came through Canada too.

  Interesting link, many thanks. Read the same anecdote about an American prisoner demonstrating his firearm.