WELLS

William Wells may have been one of the greatest airgun innovators of the twentieth century. Born in 1872, he apparently started designing and producing experimental airguns in the 1930s. He became a design consultant to Daisy in 1947. He also produced many dozens of designs, mostly repeating pneumatic rifles, but his work also included air pistols and spring piston airguns. These designs are represented by actual working specimens. Identification may not be easy; the interested reader must refer to Hannusch´s paper, cited below. Many are marked "Cde P" on the base of the grip. The base of the stock usually is marked with his favorite .180 caliber (true BB shot), but several other calibers are known, including .187. Several models were produced in the election year 1952 and are marked with a small elephant emblem engraved with the 52 date. Many of Wells´ designs are incorporated into Daisy and other brand airguns. William Wells died in October 1968, still very alert at the age of 96. It is not possible to assign values to the wide variety of Wells´ experimental airguns, but his industry changing designs are of great value. The specimen shown below has been estimated to have a value over $4,500. Ref: Larry Hannusch, 1999, Airgun Revue 4.