Surviving Examples, Markings and Identification

Where the military rifles are, what the G and the numbers mean, how to tell an Austrian service rifle from a Viennese or London sporting gun on the same system, a Lukens, a museum copy or a resin casting, and what the auction rooms have asked for them

Figure 1 — Girardoni rifles and their relatives, all seen from the right with the muzzle to the right: (A) the unmarked Beeman rifle at the Army Heritage and Education Center; (B) and (C) G-marked military ri… — Figure 1 — Girardoni rifles and their relatives, all seen from the right with the muzzle to the right: (A) the unmarked Beeman rifle at the Army Heritage and Education Center; (B) and (C) G-marked military rifles sold by Rock Island Auction; (D) the military rifle in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum; (E) a Mortimer & Son sporting rifle on the system, London, before 1818; (F) a Viennese sporting rifle by J. B. Missillieur; (G) an unmarked Girandoni-system sporting carbine; (H) a Lukens single-shot air rifle at VMI, which is not a Girardoni; (I) a modern non-firing resin casting. Rows are scaled to equal width, not to a common scale. Own-work plate from photographs credited in photo_credits.txt.

7.1 How many survive

Rock Island Auction, in its catalogues of 2023 and 2024, says that “only less than 25” of the Austrian military rifles “are known to exist today”, attributing the figure to Robert Beeman.¹ Beeman’s own pages give no single count. He wrote that “not more than a handful of these guns have ever left Europe”, that by March 2005 he and his colleagues “had examined virtually all of them, directly or by detailed photos”, and that he knew of only two military rifles without the Girardoni markings: his own and “one recently purchased at auction in Europe”.² No published census of surviving military Girardonis was found. The “fewer than 25” is best read as an experienced collector’s estimate.

Civilian rifles on the Girardoni system, made in Vienna, London and elsewhere into the nineteenth century, are more numerous, and many auction descriptions of “a Girardoni” mean one of them.

7.2 Where they are

Collections reported to hold military rifles, civilian rifles on the system, or equipment. Each entry gives its source; none was visited for this dive.

Table 1 — Where they are

Collection	What	Source
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna	Military rifles (“a few”, Beeman); one labelled “Repetier-Windbüchse M 1780, System Girandoni, Kaliber 11,4 mm”; in 1891 a rifle marked G. 162 was in the then k.u.k. Heeres-Museum and drawn for Haller’s plate; the original drawings of the pump and flask	Commons photographs (2018); Haller; Beeman³⁴²
US Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, Pennsylvania	The Beeman rifle (unmarked military), given 2006–07; a recreated accoutrement bag	Army photographs; Beeman⁵²
British collections	Baker’s scale drawings are based on “two British specimens” (not named); Beeman studied air guns at the Tower of London; the Royal Armouries at Leeds charged and tested the privately owned Heiberger conversion	Beeman²
Museo Nazionale Storico d’Artiglieria, Turin	The only original accoutrement pouch known	Beeman, courtesy of Giancarlo Melano²
Armémuseum, Stockholm	A Girandoni-system pump	Commons photograph⁶
Livrustkammaren, Stockholm	A Girandoni-system repeater by Contriner, Vienna, about 1800 (civilian)	Museum description on Commons⁷
Deutsches Jagd- und Fischereimuseum, Munich; Waffenmuseum Suhl	”Girardoni-Windbüchsen” on display (type not stated)	German Wikipedia⁸
Turin, Castel Sant’Angelo (Rome), London, St Petersburg	Civilian carbines marked “Girardoni”	Pappacena (local essay)⁹
Museo delle Regole, Cortina d’Ampezzo	A muzzle-loading air gun by Andrea Lacedelli, 1831, 11 mm (not Girardoni’s work)	Pappacena⁹
The Girardoni family	One rifle, according to a family member writing to Beeman	Beeman²
Private (sold 2023–24 and earlier)	Military rifles marked G 1493 (Christie’s), G and 382 (Rock Island lot 272), G and 356 (lot 357, ex-Beeman)	Auction catalogues¹⁰¹

Figure 2 — The left side of the G-marked military rifle sold by Rock Island Auction as lot 357 in December 2023, from the Beeman collection: plain brass side plate, the loading bar's left button, bare iron fl… — Figure 2 — The left side of the G-marked military rifle sold by Rock Island Auction as lot 357 in December 2023, from the Beeman collection: plain brass side plate, the loading bar's left button, bare iron flask. The catalogue notes restored blue finish on the barrel, magazine, swivels, bar and hammer, lightly polished brass and recut stock carving. Rock Island Auction Company, lot photograph.

7.3 The marks: G, a number, an eagle

The military rifles that have been described in print carry a consistent set of marks:

Table 2 — The military rifles that have been described in print carry a consistent set of marks

Mark	Where	Seen on	Source
G (Girardoni’s mark)	Top of the brass receiver; sometimes on the flask	Lots 272 and 357; G 1493; the HGM rifle “versehen mit dem Zeichen G. 162”	Rock Island; Christie’s; Haller¹¹⁰⁴
A number, preceded on two rifles by a “tree-like symbol (possibly acting as a ‘1’)“	Rear of the receiver, near the flask	382 (lot 272), 356 (lot 357), 1493 (Christie’s)	Rock Island; Christie’s¹¹⁰
A separate number on the flask	Flask collar or threads	”263” with the tree-like symbol (lot 272); “2” (lot 357); “3” (G 1493)	Rock Island; Christie’s¹¹⁰
Austrian military eagle	Top of the barrel at the breech; front flat of the flask’s threaded section	Lots 272 and 357	Rock Island¹
Fleur-de-lis	Stock, left side above the side plate	Lots 272 and 357	Rock Island¹
Assembly marks: a series of punched or drilled pits	All key parts, matching	The Beeman rifle and, Beeman says, other authentic military specimens	Beeman²

Figure 3 — Close views that separate the types: (1) and (2) the G stamped on the brass receiver and the number at its rear on two military rifles; (3) the plain military lock and bare flask; (4) the engraved … — Figure 3 — Close views that separate the types: (1) and (2) the G stamped on the brass receiver and the number at its rear on two military rifles; (3) the plain military lock and bare flask; (4) the engraved brass of a Mortimer and its leather-covered flask; (5) the game-scene engraving and scroll trigger guard of a Viennese sporting rifle by Missillieur; (6) the maker's legend on the Mortimer's barrel; (7) the gold-inlaid "Contriner" signature and perforated magazine of the Livrustkammaren rifle; (8) the engraved receiver and perforated magazine tube of the Missillieur; (9) the brazed two-piece brass receivers of Lukens and Kunz air rifles. Own-work plate from photographs by Rock Island Auction Company, Livrustkammaren (public domain) and Robert D. Beeman.

The fleur-de-lis on both Rock Island rifles is unexplained in the catalogues. It could be an arsenal or inspection mark, or a later collection mark; lot 357 came from the Beeman collection and lot 272’s provenance is not given. Two rifles are not enough to say.

The Beeman rifle has no G and no number. Ernest Cowan judged that its receiver is “somewhat lower and thinner in the locations where the serial number would be expected” and that the front of the flask’s end cap “appears to have been filed shorter”, and concluded that the marks had been removed.² That conclusion is Cowan’s, reported by Beeman; no photograph of the area was found.

7.4 What the numbers suggest

If the “tree-like symbol” before 382 and 356 is a 1, as Rock Island’s cataloguer suggests it may be, the three published receiver numbers are 1356, 1382 and 1493, and the Vienna museum’s rifle of 1891 is 162.¹¹⁰⁴ Read that way:

Numbers above 1,300 fit the documented stock of 1,313 rifles in March 1790 and an order that production was to continue (Volume 2).⁴
A number of 1493 fits the “about 1,500” that Beeman, citing Hoff and Hummelberger and Scharer, gives as the total made.²
The numbering would run consecutively through the whole production.

This is an inference from three published numbers and an auction cataloguer’s tentative reading of a symbol. It is offered as a line of enquiry, not a finding. A register of every surviving military rifle’s receiver and flask numbers, which does not appear to have been published, would settle it, and would also show whether flasks stayed with their rifles: the separate flask numbers (263, 2, 3) suggest they did not.

7.5 Military or civilian: the comparison plates

The two plates in this volume follow the hub’s identification rule: same side, same orientation, labelled as each source labels the gun, scaled to equal width rather than to a common scale, nothing mirrored. Each photograph was inspected and its label checked against the identification rules below; rejected images and the reasons are listed in photo_credits.txt.

The plates show that the military pattern is a plain, utilitarian rifle: bare iron flask with a brass collar, cast brass receiver with a plain side plate, plain iron lock plate and S-hammer, walnut full stock with plain or lightly incised border carving, sling swivels, and the G and number on top. The civilian rifles on the system keep the mechanism and change everything else: leather-covered flasks, engraved brass or steel, gold and silver inlay, makers’ names, scrolled trigger guards, shorter magazines (Beeman reports 16 to 20 balls, “probably to make these gentleman’s guns lighter”), and, on Beeman’s evidence, air-release bypass levers and V-shaped mainsprings instead of the military’s flat spring.²

Figure 4 — A Girandoni-system repeating air rifle signed by Contriner of Vienna, about 1800, in the Livrustkammaren (Swedish Royal Armoury): the octagonal blued barrel with gold-inlaid signature, a ball magaz… — Figure 4 — A Girandoni-system repeating air rifle signed by Contriner of Vienna, about 1800, in the Livrustkammaren (Swedish Royal Armoury): the octagonal blued barrel with gold-inlaid signature, a ball magazine of 160 mm on the right with eleven round holes along its top, a brass lock housing with a relief scene, and a steel flask largely covered in worn brown leather. Livrustkammaren photograph, public domain (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons.

Figure 5 — The inside of the lock of a Contriner Girandoni-system rifle in the Beeman collection, showing a V-shaped mainspring, where the military rifle has a long flat spring. Photograph by Robert D. Beeman… — Figure 5 — The inside of the lock of a Contriner Girandoni-system rifle in the Beeman collection, showing a V-shaped mainspring, where the military rifle has a long flat spring. Photograph by Robert D. Beeman, from beemans.net via the Internet Archive.

7.6 Tell them apart

Table 3 — Tell them apart

Feature	Austrian military (M1780)	Civilian on the Girardoni system	Lukens / Kunz (Philadelphia)	Modern museum copy	Resin casting	Where to look
Flask	Bare iron, brass collar; removable leather cover issued	Leather fixed on the flask	Butt reservoir in a Kentucky-style stock line, copper or iron	As original (Cowan copied the bare flask)	Cast, painted black	Butt
Magazine	Tube on the right of the barrel, about 20–21 balls	Tube on the right, often shorter (16–20); some perforated along the top	None: single shot, muzzle-loaded	As original	Moulded, solid	Right side of barrel
Loading bar	Plain bar with ridged buttons each end	Same system, often engraved	None	As original	Moulded, no movement	Top of the breech
Lock	Plain iron plate, S-hammer, flat mainspring inside	Engraved; often a V mainspring; may have an air-release bypass lever	Flintlock-style external lock, gooseneck or double-neck hammer	As original	Moulded	Right side
Receiver	One-piece brass casting forming the top only	Brass or steel, often engraved or gilt	Two brass halves brazed on the centre line, enclosing top and bottom	Sand-cast brass from the original	Moulded	Underside with lock off; the joint with the flask
Marks	G on receiver; number; eagle on barrel and flask; matching pit assembly marks	Maker’s name and city (“Contriner”, “MORTIMER … LONDON”, “J:B:MISSILLIEUR A VIENNE”)	“LUKENS” on some lock plates	Cowan’s copies are marked to match; Beeman says even the Beeman rifle’s carvings were copied	Seller’s casting; no marks of its own	Top of receiver, barrel, lock plate
Calibre	About 11.5–11.8 mm (.45–.46)	Varies: 8 mm to 13 mm in examples above	About .31–.36	As original	No bore	Muzzle
Sling swivels	Yes	Usually not (Beeman)	No	As original	Moulded	Underside

Sources for the table: Beeman; Rock Island Auction lots 272, 357, 1224, 1311, 3294; Christie’s; Livrustkammaren; the resin seller’s page.²¹¹⁰⁷¹¹

Beeman adds one more test for authenticity: the junction between the iron flask and the brass receiver. On an authentic specimen the lines run smoothly from one to the other; “corrupted or non-original copies may display significant differences at this point”.²

7.7 The makers of Girardoni-system arms

After 1801, and especially after 1815, Viennese and London gunmakers built sporting rifles, shotguns and pistols on Girardoni’s system. Those named in the sources read:

Table 4 — After 1801, and especially after 1815, Viennese and London gunmakers built sporting rifles, shotguns and pistols on Girardoni's system. Those named in the sources read

Maker	Place, dates as given	Known pieces, as described	Source
Joseph Contriner	Vienna, about 1800–1815	Repeating rifles (Livrustkammaren; Beeman collection, about 16 balls, V mainspring); one bought by the Danish king at the Congress of Vienna, 1815 (Hoff via Beeman); a pistol signed “JC”	Livrustkammaren; Beeman; Rock Island lot 223⁷²¹
Joseph Lowentz (Lowenz)	Vienna, about 1810	A repeater with a 17-ball magazine and .464 bore (Beeman collection); single shots	Beeman²
Schembor	Vienna	Named among the makers	Beeman²
J. B. Missillieur	Vienna by 1821; Prague by 1834	Engraved sporting repeater, about 13 mm	Rock Island lot 1224¹
Samuel Staudenmayer	London, about 1805/1806–1832	Modified versions, magazines of 16 to 20	Beeman²
Mortimer & Son	London, before 1818	Engraved repeater, cased, with two flasks, one possibly a Girardoni original	Rock Island lot 1311¹
Fisher	London	Named among the makers	Beeman²
E. A. Stormer	Herzberg	Repeating rifle/shotgun and a pistol on the system	Rock Island blog¹²
”Girandony” / “JG”	Vienna, about 1800	A gold-plated repeating pistol, lock marked “JG”, barrel signed “Girandony”; Beeman suggests Girardoni’s son Johann	Beeman²

Figure 6 — A Girardoni-system repeating air pistol signed "JC" and "in Wien", the signature Beeman attributes to Joseph Contriner, with its grip reservoir covered in red leather, about .38 calibre, about 1810… — Figure 6 — A Girardoni-system repeating air pistol signed "JC" and "in Wien", the signature Beeman attributes to Joseph Contriner, with its grip reservoir covered in red leather, about .38 calibre, about 1810–1820 according to the *Blue Book of Airguns*. Sold by Rock Island Auction as lot 223 in May 2023 from the Beeman collection. Rock Island Auction Company, lot photograph.

Figure 7 — A cased Girandoni-system repeating air rifle by Mortimer & Son of London, made before 1818, with a second flask; the case label reads "Mortimer & Son, Gun Makers to His Royal Highness the Prince Re… — Figure 7 — A cased Girandoni-system repeating air rifle by Mortimer & Son of London, made before 1818, with a second flask; the case label reads "Mortimer & Son, Gun Makers to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent". Rock Island Auction lot 1311, September 2020. Rock Island Auction Company, lot photograph.

7.8 Restorations, composites, copies and castings

Four kinds of object can be mistaken for an original military rifle:

Restored originals. Rock Island’s descriptions are frank: lot 357 has “restored blue finish” and “recut incised carvings”; the Missillieur has “professionally recut engraving” and “rewrapped” leather; the Beeman rifle had an American-walnut forend splice (Volume 4).¹² Restoration does not make a rifle a fake, but it changes what its surfaces can tell.
Composites and conversions. The Heiberger rifle in the Royal Armouries test was a single-shot Viennese air rifle of about 1750–60 converted, perhaps in 1815–40, by fitting a barrel, magazine and loading bar “from a disabled Girandoni-system airgun”; Beeman knew of no other.² Flask numbers that do not match receiver numbers (above) show that flasks were exchanged. Beeman notes that surviving rifles may have been fitted with non-original flasks after failures.²
Museum copies. Ernest Cowan and Richard Keller made four “ultra precise” copies of the Beeman rifle, marked with matching assembly pits and, Beeman writes, with the Beeman rifle’s carved lines “very carefully copied … onto the four museum copies”.² Baker and Currie built at least one working replica. Such copies are deliberately faithful; their makers’ records are the only sure way to separate them from an original.
Resin castings. A non-firing resin copy “cast from original weapons” is sold by replicaweapon.com (item 170061; $199.00 plus $25 freight in the lower 48, as listed on the seller’s page on 18 October 2026), with a blaze-orange barrel plug and “no moving parts”.¹¹ It weighs 1.8 kg, under half a real rifle, and is no risk to an informed buyer, but photographs of it circulate with Lewis and Clark captions.

Beeman also warns that 20th-century copies of the system “generally are unsigned and some are crude, even clumsy”.²

7.9 The market

Prices realised at Rock Island are shown only to logged-in users and could not be read. The pre-sale estimates, from the catalogue pages:¹

Table 5 — The market

Lot	Date	Object	Estimate
272	17 May 2024	Austrian military M1780, G and 382	$30,000–50,000
357	8 Dec 2023	Austrian military M1780, G and 356, ex-Beeman, restored finish	$20,000–40,000
1311	12 Sep 2020	Mortimer & Son, London, cased	$14,000–22,500
223	19 May 2023	”JC” Girardoni-system pistol, ex-Beeman	$12,000–20,000
1224	20 May 2023	J. B. Missillieur, Vienna, ex-Beeman	$9,500–16,000
3294	2 Dec 2018	Unmarked Girandoni-system carbine	$5,000–8,000

Christie’s offered the military rifle marked G 1493 as lot 129; the sale date and result were not shown on the page read.¹⁰ Beeman records an auction appraisal of £1,000–1,200 for a lot of three Viennese air guns including a Lowentz Girandoni-system repeater in about 2004.² Estimates are not prices, and the military rifles’ estimates already carry the Lewis and Clark association; Rock Island’s catalogues of 272 and 357 lead with it.

7.10 Owning one

An antique air gun is not a firearm under federal law or Michigan’s, because nothing in it is an explosive; the hub’s Diana 34 dive sets out both definitions and Michigan’s separate “pneumatic gun” category (Diana 34, Volume 7). Buying, owning or shipping an original raises no firearms-law question. Whether a .46 round ball counts as a “pellet” within Michigan’s pneumatic-gun definition is taken up in Volume 8.

The practical rules for an owner come from Volume 5: never charge an original flask; keep the flask off the rifle; do not use a steel rod in the bore; do not let the leather dry out; and leave dismantling the lock, with its flat mainspring, to someone who knows to restrain the spring with a punch.

References

Rock Island Auction Company, lot pages, accessed 2026-10-18: lot 272, 17 May 2024, https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4091/272 ; lot 357, 8 December 2023, https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4090/357 ; lot 1311, 12 September 2020, https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/80/1311 ; lot 1224, 20 May 2023, https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/88/1224 ; lot 223, 19 May 2023, https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/88/223 ; lot 3294, 2 December 2018, https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/75/3294 . ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴
Robert D. Beeman, “Austrian Large Bore Airguns: Girandoni style air rifles and pistols” (updated 17 July 2007) and “New Evidence on the Lewis and Clark Air Rifle” (updated 15 May 2008), formerly at beemans.net, read through the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/2022/http://www.beemans.net/Austrian%20airguns.htm and https://web.archive.org/web/2022/http://www.beemans.net/lewis-assault-rifle.htm . Accessed 2026-10-18. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴
Photographs by M11rtinb, 2 May 2018, Category:Girandoni air rifle and Category:Firearms in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Girandoni_air_rifle . Accessed 2026-10-18. ↩
August Haller, “Die österreichische Militär-Repetir-Windbüchse des vorigen Jahrhunderts”, Organ der Militärwissenschaftlichen Vereine, vol. 42 (Vienna, 1891), pp. 34–45, and the volume’s list of plates (“Tafel 2. Darstellung einer mit dem Zeichen G. 162 versehenen Windbüchse aus dem k. und k. Heeres-Museum”). Internet Archive item bub_gb_XF0-AQAAMAAJ. The plate itself is not captured in that scan. Accessed 2026-10-18. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
“Girandoni Air Rifle.jpg” and “Austrian Girandoni system Accouterments Bag.jpg”, Army Heritage Museum, U.S. Army, public domain, Wikimedia Commons. Accessed 2026-10-18. ↩
“Girandoni air rifle pump.jpg”, Armémuseum (Swedish Army Museum), CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Girandoni_air_rifle_pump.jpg . Accessed 2026-10-18. ↩
Livrustkammaren, “Luftbössa med kulmagasin, Contriner, Wien ca 1800”, museum description and photographs LSH 17703 and 34827, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luftb%C3%B6ssa_med_kulmagasin,_Contriner,_Wien_ca_1800_-_Livrustkammaren_-_17703.tif . Accessed 2026-10-18. ↩ ↩² ↩³
“Girandoni-Windbüchse”, German Wikipedia, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni-Windb%C3%BCchse . Accessed 2026-10-18. ↩
Roberto Pappacena, “I benemeriti di Cortina d’Ampezzo: 1) Bartolomeo Gilardoni”, Internet Archive capture of 10 May 2006, https://web.archive.org/web/20060510055333/http://staff.sunrise.it/polovalboite/giacomel/benemeriti1.htm . Accessed 2026-10-18. ↩ ↩²
Christie’s, “A Rare 50-Bore Austrian Breech-Loading Military Repeating Air Rifle On The Girandoni System, Circa 1780–90”, lot 129, https://www.christies.com.cn/lot/lot-842927 . Accessed 2026-10-18. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
replicaweapon.com, “Girardoni replica Lewis and Clarke air gun”, item 170061, https://replicaweapon.com/product/girandoni-air-rifle-lewis-and-clark-sale/ . Price as listed on 2026-10-18. ↩ ↩²
Joe Engesser, “The Girardoni Air Rifle”, Rock Island Auction Company, 21 November 2023, https://www.rockislandauction.com/riac-blog/girardoni-air-rifle . Accessed 2026-10-18. ↩