An article says it was in fact Western Cartridge Coy. (who later bought Winchester) who developed Super X early post war (WW1) years. My range brass theft theory is over? I don’t know anyone other than the military (or the really guilty forensic cheats) that pick up their brass while shooting on exercise today, but given the economic climate post WW1, perhaps it was extra cash?
I still shoot the odd box of Winchester Super X - I might have a carton of it here - they call cartons ‘bricks’ now.
Some great interesting stuff.nice old bottles
I read on some other site that Super X was actually a 1902 Western Cartridge Coy invention (first the rifle then the ammo), I am learning as I go with ammo frankly, so anyone with an approx. date will help me stop thinking he stole it from the range, speak up! His descendants will be grateful too. I can’t seem to find them and his grave (we visited to see who buried all of these bottles) is not kept well so…
If you collect and want any, they’re yours. Granted I am not yet done.
Super X or Western Super X was made by Western Cartridge Company of East Alton, Illinois. They made a lot of top quality ammunittion and may well have been the last company to manufacture .41 Long Colt for the first Colt Double Action Revolver which was known as the Colt DA (Double Action) Model 1877. The .41 Long Colt was a very strange design of bullet but none the less enjoyed a degree of popularity.
The Western Cartridge Company would have been absorbed into Winchester and also labled ‘Winchester - Western Division New Haven, Connecticut - East Alton Illinios’ as this label is seen on later Western X cartridge boxes. The Western Cartridge Company started manufacturing rimfire cartridges in 1908 at the address I mentioned (East Alton, Illinios) In actual fact this was quite late as the first Smith and Wesson rimfire was in 1859.
Later these would become Trademarks of Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation.
The study of American cartridges is VERY complex - for example UMC or Union Metallic Cartridge company was bought out by Remington before WWI and became Remington UMC and later just plain Remington. I am actually after FULL sealed packets of UMC cartridges.
The US was also father to MANY rimfire calibres and although the rimfire was developed in Europe very early it was restricted to Flobert BB caps with merely a very short rimfire case, primer and NO powder and a round (BB) ball - it was a gallery load. Smith and Wesson saw promise in it and extended the case and put a small amount of black powder into the case and created the first true rimfire cartridge with powder. This cartridge was known as the .22 Short and is still made today. This means that the .22 Short has been around for 161 years! By the end of the American Civil War they were making rimfire ammunition up to 58 calibre and by the year 1900 there were no less than 17 different calibre rimfire cartridges and over 77 different varieties within those 17 calibres!
Rimfire ammunition and its development and the Companies that made it are a fascinating study. I am also after any rimfire ammunition or boxes of ammunition that has a tiny letter stamped into the actual cartridge case at the top, letters are grenerally S, L or U
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The Super X ammunition was made originally by Western Cartridge company and later ‘introduced’ by Winchester in 1922. This means that your case could be either an original Western Cartridge Company loading or a Winchester loading. The Winchester Super X loading has been around for many years. Interestingly enough the Winchester loading is also addressed East Alton which is the Western Cartridge Company Address and later Western Cartridge Company AND Winchester Packets are marked Olin Mathieson so this shows the tie up between the companies. The usual address of Winchester is Hartford, Connecticut. Their ammunition packets do have different addresses and most of the Winchester ammunition available at one stage in NZ had an Australian address though the more modern Winchester Super X still had the East Alton address.
I would bet that the case you have was not used in any range shooting competition. Back pre war (WWII) very popular target ammunition was ‘German R’ plus Eley and especially Eley Tenex. Eley Tenex is still very popular all these years later and super accurate.
Hope all that helps you.
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A lot of shooters have a great number of empty rimfire cartridge cases because they pick up after themselves at the range or out hunting, just because they are tidy Kiwis. And i would imagine that scrap cartridge brass would be quite valuable in bulk because it is a known alloy.
I think it is valuable in circumstances and points of time, certainly during the war period, particularly ww1 in some countries.Culturally, it is military practice to clean up post exercise and while we wont ever know if that’s what happened (and we still do not know if that .22 brand was used by NZ for training, could just as easily be something his mate bought back from overseas, like the button from France), I can just imagine it being stuffed in a pocket and forgotten about and he’d be too scared to own up because he’d get yelled at or disciplined. Maybe now leisure hunters pick it up as we have an outdoor code but the amount of CAC brass I find in the bush and at the beach (wash ups) tells another tale and different attitudes at different time periods, as do the WW2 Home Guard anecdotes I have heard about the Orongorongos when writing memoirs.
Interesting afternoon…
Here’s one in better condition and painted red (maybe that’s part of the keeping them rules?) Guessing it is a toy? Jaw dropped when my trowel uncovered the shape and painted black so if I had to look closely to see if it was harmless or a toy, guess others will too.
Don’t assume you can just keep it, I phoned it in and it is being handed in for disposal.
Mystery item I would like help with…
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quite a few years back (in mine and lammerlaws youth) gas was piped to houses . this looks to me like a gas fitting , one that held a light on the top (gas)
my first flat in Timaru had piped gas to it for cooking and hot water heating, but not lighting but the fittings were still on the wall
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Owner says the gas piped to the front of the building is modern. I cant see a hollow for flow but perhaps you are on the right track for a kerosene fitting or window implement?
After careful consideration I think that your brass rod thing is an early elaborate candle holder for a piano minus the cup that holds the candle. The thread that holds the candle holder cup thing is visible in the first photo. Cool device.
I can also identify the gun looking device as a molecular body converter to convert carbon lifeforms into pure energy and was obviously dropped by the first visitors to NZ who were not Celts as previous conjecture has credited but rather four armed Zytopholisis from the planet Albatron in the Xenohydra star cluster ten million light years beyond our sun. Dont tell Aunty Janinda or she will want to confiscate it!
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Was I young once - well fuck my days - I cant remember back that far! I do remember lighting a gas outlet at source - ever seen how they scorched things and threatened to set the house up on fire. For mischievous minds like mine they were deadly…but fun…like putting the old mans bullets in the vice and holding them in a pair of pliers over a candle - WARNING do NOT try that at home!
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Love the ID on the weapon, it is better than I can find…still no idea about what it does technically, the other NZ bound one (he has two photos up, one is the link I posted) said something about still feeling the air out of it when fired, so erring on the side of caution (potato guns require a registration) and not really knowing if it has been modified, it was given to the lucky local arms officer to play with. If he’s really lucky a judge can order it be restored, but I doubt that will happen.
I did drop my jaw (some US officers did more than that and subsequently bright coloration became law) as I do have to be aware that in an old garage where there is buried ammo, there’s every possibility.
HEY what sort of ammo - I am an ammoholic - come to think of it I like anything that goes bang including the neighbours wife.
I had a cap gun that fired caps AND potatoes - the cap actually projected pieces of spud out the barrel. I got it in 1957. My grandmother confiscated it after she had to clean numerous dead, flattened, splattered flies and spud fragments off the wall paper. It was a pretty cool device.
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There was another expended round of CAC looking ammo today (I say looking because corrosion took away any features) Whoever buried it had chucked it in a tin first and there it was sitting in the tin when I broke the corroded side of the tin (and those old tins do melt nicely into the soil after some time). I’m wrestling with items at depth tomorrow, about the only thing that survives in the fairly waterlogged sand silt clay it is in is the ceramics, I occasionally get mist of copper, just a bit of green dust of something that was once.Nice car crank handle and early small spade the other day.
Stay tuned as in the weapon drama of the afternoon I didn’t post a possible clay pipe find I will have you look at.
Late to the party, as usual… The white porcelain item is a slipcast ornament, possibly a Wade Whimsy ™ - Of which there are thousands of designs! or at least a similar manufacture. The thickness of the casting likely discounts any of the high end porcelain manufacturers.
I suspect the tobacco inside would just be roots.
Then you come back tomorrow with Lammerlaw, I have another one and I would like it looked at. I left it at the site so I’ll post it tomorrow.
think i had one of those was blue and ytou jamed the end bit into the spud they were all the craze back then ther were spud fragments everywhere…