At first I was going to say it was one of the crude knock offs of Smith and Wessons that were being made in Belgium.
But Bob Wright's answer rung a bell and I grabbed one of my Winchester books.
Bob is almost 100% correct, except this one was designed by former S&W inventor William Wetmore. The revolver at the bottom in this photo.
These were prototypes that Winchester made up when Colt produced the Burgess repeaters, to scare the pants off of Colt. Colt agreed to stop making rifles and Winchester agreed to stay away from revolvers. The revolver at the top of this photo was designed by William Mason for Winchester.
The revolver in question appears to be a single action and has a spur on the trigger guard. The one in my photo is double action and lacks the spur, but all the other details look the same, particularly the odd shape of the cylinder with a kind of step mid length.
I have no information about what caliber these revolvers were, however it makes sense they would have been chambered for a WCF cartridge such as 44-40.
Well, you got me there. I remember seeing some patent drawings of such a device, but sure can't remember where nor what that did. Was there a clock spring winding mechanism involved?
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