The Unique Novelty Palm Pistol

Writing this column, I often find the background of the subject firearm to be a bigger story than the specific technology of the firearm itself. That is again the case with the Novelty and Unique, four-barrel, palm pistols manufactured in the United States from 1907 to 1915, as well as the unlicensed European and South American copies of the same. My focus here will be solely on the Novelty and Unique pistols, identical except for their names, markings and sometimes caliber. Here is a pistol that warrants its branding. It was and remains, both novel and unique.

Natural Pointer … Not

In conventional palm pistol designs, the barrel is parallel to the fingers to allow for natural pointing and firing by compression in the palm of the hand. In contrast, when the porcine-shaped Novelty/Unique pistol is properly gripped for firing, the barrel is oriented 90º from the fingers, and it is fired by pressing its trigger with the middle finger. Nobody would say it was a natural pointer. At best, it is an extremely awkward pointer and attempting to shoot with an extended arm seems to invite missing the target and possibly dropping the pistol in the process.

However, there is one thing the Novelty/Unique pistol is very good at. It is perfectly designed for firing from concealment inside the front pants pocket at targets near contact range.

It would be ideal in a scenario where ruffians a few feet in front of you have caught you by surprise with a demand that you “stand and deliver,” and you determine your safest move is to comply. Under their urgent eyes, you reach into your front pants pocket for the lump they can see printing through the fabric. They aren’t alarmed because the lump doesn’t look like the little revolvers sometimes carried for protection by ordinary urban citizens like yourself. They assume it’s your fat billfold, but it’s actually a little, four-barrel, .32 short rimfire, double-action Unique pistol.

You take up the little pistol in your palm with your thumb and forefinger firmly wrapped around the snout-like barrel assembly, look up to ensure the top of your fist is level with and oriented toward the groin of your adversary, and then you squeeze through its long trigger stroke four times as fast as you can. Flashes of fire erupt through your pocket as the pistol cracks, filling the space between you with black powder smoke and sending hot lead toward, ideally, the ruffian’s midsection. In this era, even unschooled street thugs know that any bullet penetrating the body cavity is likely to lead to secondary infections and death. They take flight as you extinguish your burning pants by suffocating the flames with your cap.

In this scenario, the Unique is a great gun to have. In any scenario where you don’t have to shoot from inside your pocket with your shooting arm and hand unsuspiciously at your side, just about any conventional firearm would be a better choice. That’s probably why this design hasn’t been revisited in the last 110 years.

The Mechanics

These rimfire pistols are very small, with smooth bores, no ejectors, and a hinged barrel assembly released by a latch at the top of the backstrap, allowing for loading and unloading of the four chambers. Opening the action also facilitates the removal of an otherwise captive extraction pin made of flat sheet metal. This is used to push the spent cases from the chambers. It was easily lost and is often missing from surviving examples.

The pistols are almost always nickel plated. At the time, it was a popular protective finish for concealed carry pocket pistols, which are susceptible to corrosion from continuous exposure to sweat and moisture. The double-action trigger cycled an internal hammer to fire each barrel in succession. This was done by attaching to the hammer a rotating firing pin of the style first used by Christian Sharps in his popular four-barrel, single-action derringer made from 1859 to 1874.

The Unique pistols came in two frame sizes: small for the .22 rimfire (about 0.60″ thick) and a larger frame for the .32 rimfire that was about 12% bigger overall. They were comfortably designed, smooth on the exterior with rounded edges and contours for discreet concealed carry, but that didn’t offer the shooter’s hand much purchase to control it during firing. One can imagine the danger posed to the thumb, forefinger and web of the hand if the pistol were imperfectly gripped. Well- made and reliable, this was nonetheless a highly specialized weapon with obviously limited practical applications and just terrible for people with sweaty hands. Who came up with this wacky idea?

Origin Story

The pistol was the first firearm invented and manufactured as a completely independent endeavor by future giant of the American firearms industry, Oscar F. Mossberg. At the time he received the patent for it in December 1906, he already had 15 years of firearms design and manufacturing experience and exceptional success in the area of improving the low-cost revolvers that New England was famous for at the turn of the century. His talents resulted in numerous patents for his employers.

He got his start at Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Works from 1892 to 1900, then C.S. Shattuck Arms Co. from 1900 to 1902, the J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company from 1902 to 1916 were he got extensive experience in the design and manufacture of rifles and telescopic sights, and finally Marlin Rockwell from 1916 to 1919 were his wartime work centered around military machine guns including solutions for synchronizing the firing of aircraft guns so that bullets would not strike the propeller.
Between 1907 and 1909, Mossberg worked nights, weekends and holidays alongside his two high-school-aged sons, Iver and Harold, making his palm pistols. They produced the first 500 guns, all .22 rimfire, on secondhand machinery in the barn workshop he set up behind their modest home in Chicopee, Mass. The O.F. Mossberg & Sons we know today wouldn’t be incorporated until 1919, and his first guns bore no markings other than serial numbers.

Mossberg called it the Novelty pistol, but appears to have also used the name “The Invisible Defender” to market it. It must have made a positive impression on Mossberg’s friend and former employer Charles S. Shattuck because in 1909, Shattuck purchased the rights to make and sell the little pistol, dropping all his other gun product lines to focus on it. Rebranding the pistol as the “UNIQUE,” it is estimated Shattuck made between 2,000 and 3,000 over the next six years in .22, .32 and .30 rimfire chamberings, the latter being the rarest. These guns are easy to identify since they are stamped “UNIQUE/C.S. SHATUCK ARMS CO./HATFIELD, MASS.” Notice the missing letter “T.” Why a company in business since 1875 would allow its name to be misspelled on their premier product is open to speculation.

Not knowing the details of Shattuck’s personality, finances or business plans, his decision to drop his other firearms products and concentrate entirely on the Unique pistol looks like a risky move to me. Maybe it was a “Hail Mary” play to save his company. Whatever the circumstances were, the company went under. In 1915, they were placed in receivership, and American production of the Unique ended for good. Curiously, in 1916 another U.S. patent was awarded to Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. for a pistol of the same design, but there is no evidence this blatant patent violation ever went into production. Nor did Mossberg himself ever resume production of the pistol. I suspect this was because he didn’t see a future in it. It was really too novel to be widely practical.