This is a follow up on some of my previous comments and on Burgess and his patents:

I went back through my patent data and rechecked as well as I could and looked at my procedures again to see if there were any obvious flaws - I did find about six more patents�I had completely missed one year �1879. I also found the old article "Andrew Burgess, Gun Inventor" by Elmer Burgess and Lynn T. Wakeling � Gun Collector's Digest, Volume II.�, in that article there is a list of Burgess patents (has 87 listed) and comparing to my list I had one not on that list (340479) and was missing two, one a reissue which I often had skipped over. I now have a list of 88 Burgess patents � this includes those where he was listed as a co-designer and 2 reissues. There is a footnote in that article:

(1) � Andrew Burgess held 894 patents, 599 for magazine firearms, the rest for single shots and automatics. John M. Browning held 950 patents, the majority for automatic weapons.�

I remember that statement and for many years did not question it, as I started to actually search patents several years ago I began to doubt the accuracy of that statement, I now feel it�s way off the mark. If a list of patents from years back and one that I produced independently in the last few years only can find 88 patents, and are the same except for 3 patents, I don�t see how there can be another 800+ out there that can�t be found by any resource available then or now! When I started searching patents I used the US Patent Office web site, recently there is �GOOGLE PATENTS� that gives some different options but both have features the other doesn�t � I now used both when I search; in fact it sometimes is easier going to the U.S. site through �GOOGLE�. This is only for U.S. issued patents, I would not think Andrew Burgess as likely to have foreign issued patents as John Browning, but I would think all would still be patented in the U.S. (Do patents for the same thing, in different countries, count as more than one?)

There is a recent article in � American Rifleman � about the reproduction Colt Burgess � it mentions the supposed 894 Burgess patents.


If you look up John Browning in the � WIKIPEDIA � the biography credits him with 128 patents but I could not get their link to the source of this info to work so this number is not confirmed in any way � but from what I have found it seems like a reasonable number � but certainly different than the 960 stated in the old Burgess article.

Here is the link to a � GOOGLE PATENTS � search for any patent granted to anybody named Burgess or with the Name Burgess anywhere on the patent (which would include witnesses, first or middle names, etc) � I set it to search from 1837, the year Andrew Burgess was born, until 1908 � two years after he died to allow time for any patents filed to be granted - only 419 patents were found with the Burgess name in them � less than 90 are Andrew�s, and only one (340479) that was not on the old list from the above mentioned article.


�GOOGLE PATENTS� uses text recognition software to try and �read� the scanned copies from the patent office, some of which are quite bad, so it misses a few and can give some really strange returns � like reading Andrew Burgess as �AXDEEW BUEGESS� � but it still found this patent because the name is listed more than once. I even did a search using the misread � BUEGESS � � it did not find anything �new�.


The "Andrew Burgess, Gun Inventor" article also mentions that one Burgess patent is still used in Marlin 39�s today, it was for the lever locking and was originally issued for the 1881 Marlin, it will be found stamped on 1881�s as well as on early 22 lever actions, it was issued Nov. 19, 1879 � 210091� pictured is an 1891. The other patents are April 2, 1889 � 400679 - issued to L. L. Hepburn (for the action) and March 1, 1892 � 469819 - issued to J. M. Marlin (this was just for the tubular magazine). There is another Burgess patent that looks closer to the actual gun design but I cannot find any reference to it ever being stamped on any gun 210181. The lever locking was not a new idea, it actually was patented in 1850 for a single shot breech-loader � this patent would have expired about 1867.
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From what I have found it looks like Browning had between 120 and 140 patents, Burgess had at least 88, but in my opinion probably no more than 100. Yes, this is much less than some sources state but if you think about it, it still is quite impressive. I have always been a fan of Andrew Burgess but have tried to find facts about him and not fiction. One thing I know is fact, is that he had a minimum of 88 firearms patents � these can all be looked up and the scans of the original file copies can be viewed. I cannot disprove that he had 806 more than this, but I would at lest like to see a partial list (and preferably a full list) of numbers!

This posting copyright 2010 by GeneB (who takes full responsibility for it�s accuracy�..or inaccuracy!)

Gene