{"id":29324,"date":"2026-04-15T08:01:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T13:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/15\/henry-deringers-remarkable-percussion-pocket-pistols\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T08:01:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T13:01:45","slug":"henry-deringers-remarkable-percussion-pocket-pistols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/15\/henry-deringers-remarkable-percussion-pocket-pistols\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Deringer\u2019s Remarkable Percussion Pocket Pistols"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mejs-video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"autoplay\" width=\"580\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sj9nr6-Rc3I?controls=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Henry Deringer Jr was born in Easton PA in 1786 to German parents. As a young man he apprenticed to a gunsmith, then spent 1808 working in the Virginia Manufactory making guns, and then open his own business in 1809 at 612 North Front Street in Philadelphia. He remained there until his death in 1868, making a great many guns. Early on his work was largely in flintlock muskets, both for the Army and the commercial trade, but he became best know for his single-shot percussion pocket pistols. These guns became synonymous with his name, a feat not even accomplished by Samuel Colt.<\/p>\n<p>Deringer\u2019s pistols were available in a range of caliber form .31 to .50, but .41 was most common. Barrel length was also widely variable, from barely over an inch to 4 inches or more &#8211; but between 2 and 2.5 inches was typical. These were popular guns for self defense, easily carried in a coat pocket and generally sold in pairs. A flintlock of such a size was just unfeasible to conceal in a pocket, but the advent of the percussion system made these guns eminently practical. Obviously the most famous use of one was in Booth\u2019s assassination of President Lincoln, but the guns were very popular before that.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, Deringer became a part of trademark law when he filed suit against a sales agent, A.J. Platt, in San Francisco. Platt handled his inability to get enough pistols from Deringer to meet demand by setting up production of his own copy, complete with the marking \u201cDeringer Philadel\u201d. Deringer\u2019s trademark infringement case was successful, and created a precedent for awarding a judgement based on the lost revenue suffered by the plaintiff &#8211; in Deringer\u2019s case, $1,700 instead of his initial demand for $15,000.<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, Platt\u2019s response after losing the case was to find a man in Philadelphia named \u201cDerringer\u201d and license his name, so that he could continue to make guns that his customers would not recognize as being counterfeits. This would be the basis for a further lawsuit today, but Deringer died in 1868 before pursuing the issue farther.<\/p>\n<p>The best firearms reference books: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.headstamppublishing.com\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.headstamppublishing.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! <a href=\"http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Henry Deringer Jr was born in Easton PA in 1786 to German parents. As a young man he apprenticed to a gunsmith, then spent 1808 working in the Virginia Manufactory making guns, and then open his own business in 1809 at 612 North Front Street in Philadelphia. He remained there until his death in 1868,&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/15\/henry-deringers-remarkable-percussion-pocket-pistols\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Henry Deringer\u2019s Remarkable Percussion Pocket Pistols<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}