Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Gunsmiths used to dream up all sorts of fantastic semi-automatic designs in the years leading up to the 20th century. One eccentric example is the Roth-Steyr Model 1907, a forerunner of semiautomatic pistols which found its place among the holsters of cavalry officers in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Instead of having an external magazine, you would have had to push rounds into a solid magazine through the top of the receiver. Afterward, when you pressed down on its trigger, there was that somewhat modern-ish striker-fired mechanism that you could feel squeezing rearward. In addition, upon firing a shot, even the barrel itself revolved much like we see later in the Steyr M1912. Mostly a financier rather than a gunsmith himself, Georg Roth funded these and numerous other nonconventional pistol projects during this period. The Roth-Steyr Model 1907 chambered in his proprietary 8mm Steyr round saw action right through both world wars as it passed from Austria to Italy as war reparations and then ended up with other East European nations.
“Manufacturer: Steyr
Model: 1907
Type: Pistol
Gauge: 8 mm
Barrel: 5 1/4 inch round
Finish: blue
Grip: hardwood
Blade front and notch rear sight, with “WAFFENFABRIK STEYR” on top of the barrel rib and “W-n. (eagle) 10″ on the rear of the frame. Fitted with a set of ribbed hardwood grips with an unmarked unit disc on the right side.”
Lot 1479: Roth-Steyr Model 1907 Semi-Automatic Pistol – Exceptional Roth-Steyr Model 1907 Semi-Automatic Pistol. (n.d.-t). Rock Island Auction Company. photograph. Retrieved May 27, 2024, from https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4091/1479/rothsteyr-model-1907-semiautomatic-pistol.
