Manufrance, 1885-1985

R.I.P.

“Bien faire et le faire savoir” (TN: If it’s well done, it’s better to have it well known), the “Manu” motto finely sums up this exceptional company as the image of what France has been able to create in these bygone times…

Emblem of the French companies by its size and its extraordinary organization Manufrance, more precisely and until 1911 “La Manufacture française d’armes et cycles de Saint-Étienne” (French Manufacture of Weapons and Bikes from Saint-Étienne) is one of the first companies to offer a real worldwide mail order service. In 1970, 1.5 million households received the catalogue. At a time when desktop tool was limited to pen and ink, it is difficult for us, unconditional users of the computer, to imagine the scope of such an organization. How did they manage to do it …? Because of the evolution of their employees: 150 in 1889, more than 2,000 in 1905 and 4,000 in 1947…As well the whole factory and office held 40,000m² and were then extended to reach a whooping 125,000m². In 1902, a power plant was even built to provide the necessary electrical power to the factory!

Something unthinkable nowadays, we must not forget that “La Manufacture” was above all a weapon designer and maker company. In 1970, Manufrance manufactured more than 70% of the French hunting weapons. 80,000 were produced in 1973…

At the same time, in 1885, the magazine “Le Chasseur Français” (TN: The French Hunter) was created, a periodical about hunting. Nearly 450,000 copies were distributed in 1939 and up to 815,000 in 1973. Several owners changes later, the magazine remains present in newsstands 135 years later… now also available in a digital version.

As the manufacture of weapons was a part of normal life at that time it was logical to also produce multiple articles of fishing, hunting, sewing machines and all this without counting the myriad of objects of everyday life as well as “bikes” which recently discovered. All were delivered without distinction of distance and available in all homes via the catalog “Tarif Album” (TN: Rate Album) as it was known when it began. First and foremost, the Manufacture consisted in dozens of stores in France: Rouen, Paris, Avignon, Toulouse, Nantes, Lille, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Nancy, Troyes, Valence, Lyon, Nice, etc. and hundreds of stores in the “French colonies”, today a cancelled word by certain ideologies… It is clear that it participated in a certain influence of France throughout the world.

On October 17^th, 1885, Etienne MIMARD and Pierre BLACHON bought the “MANUFACTURE FRANCAISE D’ARMES DE CHASSE MARTINIER-COLLIN” which became “MANUFACTURE FRANCAISE D’ARMES DE SAINT-ÉTIENNE”.

In 1929, the crisis and the multiplication of taxes on the company stroke the first blow to the Manufacture. This was followed by the 1937 strikes and then WWII, during which Étienne MIMARD refused any collaboration with the occupants. When Etienne MIMARD died on June 19^th, 1944, he bequeathed his shares to the Saint-Étienne city rather than to its employees: maybe because of internal strife? Very difficult to say now and from the outside…

Subsequently, the enlargement of the European Economic Community did not help business, especially when it was necessary to add Asian competition. 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, the first oil shock reduced household consumption lowering sales, anger growled within the walls of “La Manu”, the first strikes rose… And so, in 1979: the first liquidation took place. From that moment on, nothing would stop the end of “La Manu” in 1985… In 1988 the SARL “Manufacture française d’armes de Saint-Étienne” was created. Sadly, it was only the shadow of La Manufacture française d’armes et cycles de Saint-Étienne… (TN: SARL is a French form for quite small private company)

Who hasn’t spent hours flipping through “The Catalog” at a time when we were still receiving them in our mailboxes? Weapons enthusiasts dreamed of the avant-garde lines of the latest Reina models, Rapid, Falcor or other Perfex, in front of the “firepower” of the “Unique” 22lr pistols or the singular “Buffalo Mitraille” with its original multi-bore barrel! It took little to get lost in the range of workshop tools offered and never seen in our convenience stores. There were everyday objects, unknown objects with obvious destinations for insiders but also objects from the latest technological developments. In short, browsing the “Manufrance” in one’s city apartment or in one’s kitchen of a remote farm in the countryside dimly lit with only the 20W bulb of the incandescent lamp remained an opening to the dream and access to “modern life”! This was sometimes done by listening to the TSF (TN: French wireless radio of those times) with the logo “MF” (ManuFrance) directly carved into the mass of the wood of the radio set… when one’s budget allowed this expensive purchase…

Through these few catalogs that you can browse here thanks to our “state-of-the-art” viewer – as we could have said at the time of La Manu – you will be able to appreciate the magnitude of what you cannot dream of before seeing it … A French model that is now “globalized” … copied but not equaled… unparalleled or unprecedented…

We hope that we can add new catalogs at our disposal but these remain to be digitalized…