Josef Laumann was an Austrian designer during the early 1890’s who developed and patented a small number of manually operated pistols in his quest to design a reliable semi-auto pistol. These were developed for the Austrian military trials but were rejected. As a result, he sold some of his patents to the Schönberger brothers who also provided financial assistance. They modified his designs from a repeater into a fully semi-auto pistol. This 1892 model was one of the earliest semi-auto designs, losing out by only a few months to the Salvator-Dormus, the first functioning semi-auto pistol design. The Schönberger design was also submitted to the Austrian trials, but as with the earlier Laumann designs was also rejected.
There is also some confusion with the 8mm Kromar, but according to Josef Motz, Vol 3, p 296, the Kromar designation is wrong, as there was never such a cartridge, the Schönberger, with Roth #350 is the correct name for this cartridge. The pistol featured here is a M1892 Schönberger -Laumann, manufactured by the Waffenfabrik Steyr. It was featured on icollector.com, originally from the Dr. Geoffrey Sturgess Collection and was sold for $27,500. (Erlmeier, Brandt Ref. 104).
