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Bitterlich & Co. Rifle
jnrthingsnstuff
Member Posts: 6 ✭✭
Any help you can give me would be really appreciated. I recently acquired a flintlock rifle, marked Fr.J Bitterlich & Co. Nashville, TN. I've managed to find some history on the maker. I found a Bitterlich rifle on a different auction site, that was missing a trigger and something else (ramrod, I think). The asking price on that one was $5500. I'm wondering if that is about right? Too high? Too low? Wondering how to price mine. It's in very good condition, not cracks, dings, etc. Thanks so much.
Comments
"The best known gunsmith of the 1860's in Nashville was Franz (later Frank) J Bitterlich. Bitterlich was born in Bohemia in 1829 and according to the 1860 census was a 31-year old resident of Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee, employed as a gunsmith. Bitterlich is best known for his copies of Henry Deringer's pocket pistols, and apparently produced them not only for himself, but for Schneider & Glassick of Memphis as well. What is less well known is that Bitterlich produced a wide range of firearms from derringers to belt pistols to rifles, all of which were well made arms and apparently very desirable at the time. Sometime in 1862 Bitterlich entered into a partnership with a man named Legler, and they remained in business under the name of Bitterlich & Legler until sometime in *1867."
*Bitterlich & Legler were still listed in the 1878 Nashville city directory.
Value of percussion rifles depends on artistic merit and condition, and not on name alone.
Any help you can give me would be really appreciated. I recently acquired a flintlock rifle, marked Fr.J Bitterlich & Co. Nashville, TN. I've managed to find some history on the maker. I found a Bitterlich rifle on a different auction site, that was missing a trigger and something else (ramrod, I think). The asking price on that one was $5500. I'm wondering if that is about right? Too high? Too low? Wondering how to price mine. It's in very good condition, not cracks, dings, etc. Thanks so much.
Asking prices on the auctions, don't mean squat. Some folks live in a fantasy world, as far as their perceived value of the firearms they are trying to sell.
Link below is to instructions for posting photos on this forum. Many on here are pros as far as values of antique arms are concerned.
http://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=259294
EDIT #1, Although the photos are out of focus, it's a real righteous looking, high quality, flintlock. It's interesting to speculate why he would make a 1820's era flintlock? 30 years later during the 1850's, when they had been obsolete for years?
You most likely have a percussion rifle, not a flintlock. Bitterlich was born in 1820s and arrived in USA from Germany in 1853. He is known mostly for percussion deringers. Here is a researcher's short history:
"The best known gunsmith of the 1860's in Nashville was Franz (later Frank) J Bitterlich. Bitterlich was born in Bohemia in 1829 and according to the 1860 census was a 31-year old resident of Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee, employed as a gunsmith. Bitterlich is best known for his copies of Henry Deringer's pocket pistols, and apparently produced them not only for himself, but for Schneider & Glassick of Memphis as well. What is less well known is that Bitterlich produced a wide range of firearms from derringers to belt pistols to rifles, all of which were well made arms and apparently very desirable at the time. Sometime in 1862 Bitterlich entered into a partnership with a man named Legler, and they remained in business under the name of Bitterlich & Legler until sometime in *1867."
*Bitterlich & Legler were still listed in the 1878 Nashville city directory.
Value of percussion rifles depends on artistic merit and condition, and not on name alone.
If the barrel is marked Bitterlich, he or someone else may have rebarreled or refreshed an old flintlock.
Try taking closeups of markings with a camera that has a Macro setting.
http://www.antiqueguns.com/phorum/read.php?6,19858,19867#msg-19867
You might contact nord, and if you get definitive info, post again to satisfy our curiosity.