Firearms — 19th century — 1890s
About this product
About this collection
This collection covers 90 firearms from the 1890s, delivered across 251 images in 29 ZIP assets. The 1890s saw the bolt-action magazine rifle reach full maturity — the Lee-Enfield, Mauser 98, and Krag-Jørgensen all emerged in this decade, and semi-automatic pistols began to challenge the revolver as the military sidearm of choice. Smokeless powder was now universal.
Why it matters
The 1890s established the technological template that would carry armies through WWI — the bolt-action magazine rifle, the Maxim-pattern machine gun, and the emerging semi-automatic pistol created a weapons system that would define infantry combat for the next 50 years. The Royal Armouries' holdings are particularly strong in British service weapons from the late imperial period.
Use cases & time to value
- Game & film production design: Accurate period reference for 1890s-era weapons in historical games, film, and television
- AI training data: Large labelled firearms dataset for object-recognition, period-classification, and type-identification models
- Military history research: Primary visual source for comparative study of 1890s firearms technology and design evolution
- Publishing & editorial: Ready-to-license imagery for histories, encyclopaedias, and military reference works
- Museum education: Accessible digital collection for academic and public programming on 1890s arms development
Data schema
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| object_number | string | Royal Armouries catalogue number (XII. prefix + sequence) |
| object_name | string | Standardised object type name as catalogued |
| class | string | XII (Firearms) |
| period | string | 1890s |
| image_filename | string | Original filename as catalogued by the museum |
| image_format | string | tif (archival high-res), jpg (catalogue), or bmp (legacy) |
| width_px | integer | Image width in pixels |
| height_px | integer | Image height in pixels |
| file_size_bytes | integer | Uncompressed file size in bytes |
Collection stats
29 assets · 90 objects · 251 images · 1890s
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