Some of the most beautiful work of this craftsman, and many others, are in this book “Liège Gunmakers through their Work. 1800 - 1950”.
For more detail see: LIEGE GUNMAKERS
The limited company of the Old Pieper Establishments
Biography
This company is created on August 4, 1905; it takes again the credits of Ets Pieper put in liquidation.
However, contrary to the latter, its activities are limited to the manufacture of weapons: shotguns and rifles. Since 1907 it yields the factories of the street of Bayards and Nessonvaux and makes build a new factory with Herstal, to the 73 of the street Petite Foxhalle.
In 1908 it takes again a Bergmann contract for the delivery of automatic guns to the Spanish government then Danish. Thereafter it puts in manufacture the range of the guns of Bayard pocket, patented by his new Director, Bruno Clarus. A rifle and a gun of shooting known as semi-automatic (models 1912) are added to it. The firm installs a cartridge factory and starts the manufacture of ammunition for handguns.
In August 1914, the AEP are constrained to work for the German occupant to whom they will provide great quantities of guns Bayard, bayonets for Mauser and of the parts spare for guns Parabellum P08.
In 1918, in spite of a severe crisis in arms manufacture, the production begins again under the direction of Joseph Declaye. While the traditional manufacture of weapons of hunting continues, the aforementioned made patent and manufacture a new gun (model 1923), two rifles with bolt (models 1921 and 1927), revolvers type Smith & Wesson and a rifle with automatic repetition with tubular charger.
1934 see the adoption of a version improved of the Schmeisser-Bergmann machine-gun by the Belgian army. The AEP obtain from it the order (Machine-gun 34), just as that of the transformation of a part of the old men Mauser 1889 into Mauser model 89/36. Jean-François Declaye succeeds his father with the head of the company.
In 1940 the factory is requisitioned by the troops of occupation. A German direction is indicated to organize the production of heavy machine guns for Luftwaffe.
Released by the Americans in September 1944, the AEP take again their activities with difficulty: shotguns, rifles with bolt and compressed-air, new automatic gun 6,35 Browning, machine-guns Sten La company inhabitant of Liège ARMO entrusts to them the manufacture of the shotgun Actionless to hidden relaxations: it will be a fiasco.
The firm, placed in legal settlement of bankruptcy in 1953, must practically cease its activities in 1954. The majority of the buildings will be sold in 1956 and will be destroyed in 1957.
Arms production.
Shotguns to external hammers and Hammerless; gun Bergmann-Bayard 1908, 1910/21; guns of pocket Bayard mod.1908, 1911 and 1912 (patents Bruno Clarus); Berthier light machine gun; semi-automatic rifles and 22 gun (models 1912) (patents Warnant and N.Pieper); rifles with bolt models 1921 and 1927; rifle with automatic repetition n° 7 (patents Joseph Declaye); revolver Bayard model 1926 n° 10, 11 and 12; Belgian machine-gun model 34; army rifle model 89/36; air guns Bayard; gun 6,35 New Model; Sten machine-guns; shotgun Actionless to hidden trigger.
Patents deposited in Belgium
Two patents for a rifle with bolt (1919) - actually a patent Joseph Declaye; A patent for a Sten machine-gun improved (1952)
Trade marks
Resumption of a part of the trade marks by Henri Pieper (from of which the Bayard knight in two versions different); illustration of the gun of pocket Bayard 1908; Half-block; Old Establishments Pieper Herstal; Adler
Count with the proof house of Liege: 1905 - 1957