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(for more pictures, go to my website:http://www.mbi.ufl.edu/~papke/curios/)

Arthur Savage founded his company in 1894 to make lever action rifles. In 1905 he purchased the rights to manufacture an autoloading pistol designed by E.H. Searle Although known primarily as a rifle company, from the very beginning of their pistol production, Savage went into direct competition with Colt for the biggest plum of all, the US military contract. Savage produced approximately 300 pistols in 45 caliber for government testing and came out second after years of competition, ahead of models such as the DWM Luger. In 1907 Savage began commercial production of their semi automatic pistol. Mostly were 32 caliber although some were made for 380 auto. With marketing slogans like; "It banishes fear", and "Aims as easily as pointing your finger", and endorsements from notables such as Bill Cody and Bat Masterson, sales of the model 1907 were sufficiently successful that for a time Savage was the second largest manufacturer, of auto-loading pistols in the US, after Colt. Although the original 45 caliber models fired with delayed blow back from a locked breech, the 32 and 38 caliber models all operated by simple blow back. The Savage pistols utilized only coil springs and had a patented "no screws" design that allowed for easy disassembly. They were also the first pistol to use a stagger stack of cartridges in the magazine, giving a 10 round capacity. At the beginning of World War One, France had only a small supply of woefully antiquated revolvers for service pistols, and contacted with Spanish companies for the purchase of the needed hundred of thousands of semiautomatic pistols. However it was clear that the supply of Spanish pistols would not match the immediate demands of the war and so France also placed orders for 27,000 Savage model 1907 pistols. The serial number and the presence of the lanyard ring both confirm that my pistol was one of those shipped to France in 1916. One imagines that the French service man who was issued pistol was probably pleased to receive it, especially as production pressures led to decreases in the quality of the Spanish-made Ruby pistols.

References:
French Service Handguns 1858-2004, Eugene Medlin and Jean Huon, Published by Tommy Gun Publications, Copyright 2004

Pistols of World War I, Robert J. Adamek, Copyright 2001

Military Firearms 1870 to Present: Premier Edition, Ned Schwing, Published by Krause Publishing, Inc., Iola WI, Copyright 2001