Some of the most revealing artifacts are not firearms themselves, but the everyday objects that once accompanied them. This recently acquired cartridge box is a good example. Its printed address and handwritten contents label preserve a small but unusually precise record of the final years of Eugène Lefaucheux’s Paris business and his transition from the pinfire system for which the family is best known to modern centerfire ammunition.
Eugène’s business had passed through several Paris addresses by this time. He began at 37 rue Vivienne, where his mother continued Casimir Lefaucheux’s older retail establishment, the Maison Lefaucheux. Eugène’s separate manufacturing concern, E. Lefaucheux et Cie., initially operated from the same address before expanding into workshops at 9 and 9 bis rue Lafayette. In 1860, it moved to the newly built factory at 104 rue Lafayette, later renumbered 194. This move formally separated Eugène’s operation from the Maison Lefaucheux at rue Vivienne. In 1875, he transferred his Paris sales shop and offices to 32 rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, while most remaining production moved to Trémerolles near his home at Bruyères-le-Châtel.
The lid of this tin is printed “Armes E. Lefaucheux, 32 rue N.-D. des Victoires, Paris.” A handwritten paper label identifies what it originally contained:
Cartouches revolver à balles
Calibre 9 m/m. Percuss. centrale
This translates as revolver cartridges loaded with bullets, 9 mm caliber, centerfire percussion. The final line is important. It does not say à broche, or pinfire. The tin held loaded centerfire revolver ammunition, representing the later phase of Eugène Lefaucheux’s work, when centerfire arms had largely displaced the pinfire system in military and commercial use.
The address allows the tin to be dated with unusual precision. Eugène’s lease at 32 rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires began on June 15, 1875, and the shop became the final Paris home of his arms business. On November 15, 1881, he sold the establishment, its stock, his final arms patent, and the commercial name Maison E. Lefaucheux to Joseph Chevalier and Camille Dru.
Chevalier & Dru continued the business and retained the right to use the E. Lefaucheux name, so the tin cannot be proven absolutely to predate the sale. Their later materials, however, commonly identified the firm as Maison E. Lefaucheux, Chevalier & Dru successeurs, or otherwise included the successors’ names. Because this tin is marked simply “Armes E. Lefaucheux,” it most likely belongs to Eugène’s own tenure at the address, giving it a probable date of 1875 to 1881.
The original cartridges are no longer present, but the tin was likely intended for one of Eugène Lefaucheux’s rarer 9 mm centerfire revolvers derived from the Model 1868/1870 design. The regulation Model 1870 adopted by the French Navy was a larger 11–12 mm arm, but Eugène also produced civilian and developmental versions in 9 mm centerfire, including seven-shot examples. That makes this small tin an especially interesting survivor from the final years of his Paris business, linking his famous pinfire legacy to the newer centerfire revolvers that followed.
