WILLIAM S. SCHNEIDER
#248 A Schneider and Company derringer that is a medium size for this brand of gun. Barrel is full octagon. Trigger guard and tear drop buttcap are made of sterling silver and other inlays are of German silver. Made without ramrod. The stock forearm at the nose is fluted. Trigger guard finial has a screw going through to the barrel to hold the gun together, along with the wedge helping to hold the forearm to the barrel. Most of the Schneider guns have a definite pronounced curve shape to the lock. Notice how low the hammer is. The lockplate is very plain with a simple lined border. The caliber of this specimen is .450.
The serial number of this gun is #122, the highest known. Of all the Southern made derringers, this is the only maker that serial numbered his guns. Of course this is an assumption that the number on top of the breechblock is the serial number, but all that we have ever seen had a similar number in this position. Assuming that the Schneider Company manufactured one hundred and twenty-two pieces, and that possibly thirty of these guns are in existence, this means that the survival rate is one out of four. Bearing in mind that this survival rate is only an assumption, consider how few guns some of the lesser known makers must have produced. At this rate, for instance, Siebert should not have produced many over six or eight guns.
I have known of this gun’s existence for nearly thirty years. In 1943 when I was taking the train from Union City to Chattanooga, I happened to sit down by a Mr. Fain Taylor from Greenfield, twenty miles away. We got to talking and found out that we were both interested in guns, and he told me that he had this gun. Then after the War was over, I went by to visit him and see his collection. Of course, this gun was not for sale. At that time and during the years gone by in the 1930’s he used this little pistol as a training gun for his bird dogs out in the field.
The years went by and I would see him ever so often and ask him about his gun. Finally, in 1967 he appeared at the store one day and said, “Well, I’m going to let you have my gun. You like these Southern derringers so well that I think the best place for this gun to be is in your collection.” With that, I paid him the going rate for this type of gun and of course I don’t think that I will ever dispose of it in my lifetime.
The barrel is marked on the top flat in two lines with one stamp as follows:
Schneider & Co.
Memphis, Tenn.
Schneider was a gunsmith in the 1850’s and later a member of the revolver making firm of Schneider and Glassick.