Diana Model-8

Diana Model-8 Target 

With many thanks to Lawrie for these pics:

Thanks again to Lawrie for these pics, which show more detail of the rear sight.

There are also several that show a reproduction sight Lawrie made for an American collector.

With thanks to John M for these pics of the same pistol:

Diana Model-8 Target - Unbranded.

With thanks to John G for these pics.

This pistol was marketed in the UK as the 'Holborn' and the absence of a 'Diana' marking, as on the other mod 8 in this gallery, suggests it could have been left unbranded for export.

Diana mod 8 (detailed pics) 

With thanks to a collector friend.

Diana Model-8 rarity mystery 

John Griffiths, author of the Encyclopedia of Spring Air Pistols, wrote the following on the airgunbbs.com forum in a post with the title Why is this Diana pistol so rare?:

One of the hardest pistols to find for my collection was the Diana 8 Target pistol, which Mayer & Grammelspacher introduced as their first target pistol in 1910, and which was in production up to 1916.

It took me almost 30 years before I managed to nail this one, which was complete and working, and in very good condition.

I know of only five surviving examples, two in Germany and three in the UK, so it is an extremely rare pistol. You just never see them at auction. This is very puzzling, as it must have been made in significant numbers in its ca. seven years of production, and it was one of, if not the, most widely advertised target air pistols of the period. Even the Westley Richards Highest Possible, which was on the market at the same time, seems commonplace in comparison. I know of far more examples of the concentric Highest Possible, the Tell 3 and Anson Star than I do of this this particular pistol.
The gun is reasonably well made, admittedly with some folded steel parts, but it has little to go wrong, so low survivability seems an unlikely explanation for its scarcity. It would also have been a fairly accurate target pistol, coming as it did with a nice fully adjustable rear sight, so it is the sort of gun that most owners would probably have looked after well.

It was widely advertised in Germany and is illustrated in several contemporary German catalogues. For example:

It was also well advertised in the UK, such as in this Frank Dyke catalogue dating to around 1911-1914) , when it had a remarkably low price of 12 shillings (60 p). The BSA air rifles, in comparison, were almost 7 times more expensive, at about £4.

The pistol was also sold by Gamages as the “Holborn”, and was advertised alongside the Highest Possible. In the 1913 edition the price of the pistol was only seven shillings and sixpence, or 37 ½ p, and the Highest Possible was 4 times more expensive at 30 shillings (unboxed).

The Midland Gun Co. also sold the pistol, which they called the “Batho”, and in their 1914 catalogue and at 13 shillings it was almost twice the price that Gamages was offering. Their Highest Possible was also significantly more expensive at 56 shillings boxed. Either there was massive inflation between 1913 and 1914, or Gamages was able to undercut other suppliers by major margins.

So the question remains, why is the Diana 8 probably the rarest of all the production air pistols made in the early 1900’s ? Or does someone know of a secret stash of these somewhere?