Peerless with a twisted chain linkage

A fellow collector sent me the following copy of the American Rifleman magazine. He notes that the early model Peerless cuff has an unusual linkage.

Does anyone know if Peerless ever made a cuff with a twisted chain linkage?


thanks
Joe

Hi Joe:

Fuzzy as the pictures are, these are a Model 1 (solid bit key, double locks with the key), and they're clearly in rather rough shape.

As I understand it, the main reason for having two oval links between cuffs (in comparison to the original single long link Peerless had) is that it allows for the cuffs to be folded in half more easily and compactly. Having "twisted" links would interfere with this.

While I can't tell for sure what version of the Model 1 these are, they do have the Peerless logo which indicates they were manufactured well after Peerless had worked out the major bugs on their initial cuffs, one of which was replacing the single long link with two small oval ones.

In the pictures you posted, if you look at the link on the right, in addition to being twisted, it's also bent out of shape longitudinally. All in all, it strikes me that someone with too much time on their hands took a couple of screwdrivers or pliers and just twisted the things, perhaps in an attempt to break the links apart.

All in all, I doesn't strike me this is a factory sort of thing, no more than all the all the scuffs and scratches on the cuffs.

Franklin

A fellow collector sent me the following copy of the American Rifleman magazine. He notes that the early model Peerless cuff has an unusual linkage.

Does anyone know if Peerless ever made a cuff with a twisted chain linkage?


thanks
Joe

I always had heard that the model one had the lock case rounded more where bow
enters into the cuff. I believe thats an earlier model. I have one of those, and it does have the oval link. I think this to be a later model,
and as for the twisted links, I have not seen them before, but my model marked,
"Pat. Feb. 20, 1912 Oct. 19th, 1915 Nov. 23rd, 1915 Patent pending" has the
two links, but they're not twisted. John

Below are photos of my two earlier Peerless cuffs. Bottom one was what I
thought was a model 1. Note rounded lock body where bow enters lockcase.
Top one the Patent applied for 1912/1915 version.

>

A fellow collector sent me the following copy of the American Rifleman magazine. He notes that the early model Peerless cuff has an unusual linkage.

Does anyone know if Peerless ever made a cuff with a twisted chain linkage?


thanks
Joe

John,
The top cuff in your photo is with the 2nd model lock which is determined by where the pin is that holds the internal parts in the lock and the push pin in the edge of the lock case. The bottom cuff has the 1st model lock which has the pin in a different location and no push pin. The one on the display shows the lock to be a 1st model. I have seen somewhere on the net, and I have a bunch here that they rounded lock cases and non rounded lock cases with either 1st or 2nd model locks. So it is bit puzzling as to the progression of the cuffs that Peerless took.

A fellow collector sent me the following copy of the American Rifleman magazine. He notes that the early model Peerless cuff has an unusual linkage.

Does anyone know if Peerless ever made a cuff with a twisted chain linkage?


thanks
Joe

The Peerless model designations come from Dick Norman's book. The cuff he called the first model had a squarish lock case without the double lock push pin on the side. The earliest model 1 had a large single link, later model 1s had two smaller links.

The cuff with the curved lock case, the lower one in John's picture, was not in Norman's book. It matches the patent drawings, so I have always called it the patent model. I guess we could also call it the Model 0.

The Model 2 followed the model 1 and it introduced the push pin double lock.

Joe

P.S. Trivia question. Which company patented the push pin double lock?

A fellow collector sent me the following copy of the American Rifleman magazine. He notes that the early model Peerless cuff has an unusual linkage.

Does anyone know if Peerless ever made a cuff with a twisted chain linkage?


thanks
Joe

Uhhhh, as I recall, it was H.E. Wood, assignor to Tower & Lyon who patented a push pin double lock around 1908 but it never went into production.

A fellow collector sent me the following copy of the American Rifleman magazine. He notes that the early model Peerless cuff has an unusual linkage.

Does anyone know if Peerless ever made a cuff with a twisted chain linkage?


thanks
Joe

Franklin: You are bad.