Thanks for the link to 'my armoury'...good ole days!
Steyr was an Austrian arms center, it seems mostly for guns, but this obscure entry in Gardner ("Small Arms Makers", 1963) shows this curious RUNNING FOX? as opposed to the chop mark Passau running wolf. It is suggests 1620 period, but without name etc hard to say when or how long this mark was used.
The 1414 is a gemetria oriented 'magic' number combination which seems to have been the most popular, though 1441, and 1515 and some others are known.
Note the fact that the numbers are placed upside down from the orientation of the animal, exactly in the convention used in Solingen with the running wolf. It is unclear why this was done, and if any weapons were from Passau using the wolf and this. While it is called the Passau wolf, I have yet to see a weapon FROM Passau bearing this familiar mark.
The character of this cuttoe is French, probably mid 18th c. by the style of the scallop shell, and again curious to know more on this running fox device which seems to have eluded most of the compendiums on markings as well as how the date of 1620 was arrived at. Even the similar use of this type figure in Shotley Bridge was not until the last part of the 17th into early 18th.
|