Good Lord! Everyone look at Rock Island Auctions website and take a look at the Fox they are going to auction soon. Kornbrath and Gough engraved with 2 sets of barrels. Unreal.

Direct link:
http://www.rockislandauction.com/viewitem/aid/62/lid/1399

Okay, who is going to be the first hater to criticize it for not having scalloped action?

Oh, I hear it has more significant issues than that!!

Don't be so cryptic!

Haha! I wanted to say that.

I'll be interested in this story as it unfolds. For openers:
Why use a Sterlingworth as the base gun here and not at least an A grade? I have nothing against Sterlingworths except to point out the obvious. It's an entry level economy grade gun.
Jim

---------Lots of Fakes in the World.

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In 1986, that receiver, 2728, is pictured at the bottom of page 97 of The Gun Digest 1986/40th Annual Edition, with a different stock and barrels.

I wasn't going to say anything. The images don't pass my smell test.

I'd ask Roger Bleile if the engraving matches RK's pre-37 work.

I'm posting this 45 auto for comparison purposes. This is one of Kornbrath's best known engraving jobs done back in the 30s. It was commissioned by a Texas oilman hence the Western theme.
Jim



Below is a sampler of Kornbrath's engraving:

From what I hear, RIA will surely stand behind the provenance .

I don't have MM's book in front of me, but don't recall seeing this gun in there. I assume that was no oversight on his part?

Yeah- it is a Custon Fox-- Albert Coston, who taught Gough and Kornbrath their craft- but he had a falling out with old Ansley H. and was handed his "walking papers" about 1913, so the rumor goes. RIA-- how do they stack up against James D. Julia? Anyone care to "take a shot"??

One bbl set has over stamped ser#(at least the 2 digits you can see). The '(-Fluid Steel) Krupp Essen-' is hand cut on that one also,,looks roll stamped on the other.
That is one way to get a 2-bbl set.

If thats Rudy's work,,it must have been a Monday after a very rough weekend.
The bbl engraving may have been a 2 stage process. It just has the look of it to me.
First the scroll near the breech was added along with the muzzle scroll.
Then as an after thought , Princess SummerFallWinterSpring was added along with the game animals to stretch out the bbl engraving even more. More is better..
All very un-RJK looking IMO. But that's just me.

Didn't remove all the roll die marked info on the action flats.
It doesn't say it's a factory piece though,,so no special handling I guess.,, not picked off the line before normal roll markings added, ect. Just a basement after-hours job at home.

Jeweled action flats,,, and then case colored?,,nice touch.
Maybe they just forgot to jewel on the bbl flats & lugs too. We don't know about the forend as there are no pics.

The Gough engraving looks credible,,but alot of his standard Fox work is so crude (trying to be polite),, it's not a difficult one for the forgery crowd.
I've usually seen his signiture on the trigger plate around the hole where the guard screws into (Fox and Parker). Same with his father.
But anything is possible.
Just some thoughts and observations.
Get your check books out,,,,

As the ad says,,,It's Monumental,,

Yeah, looking closer at the pics it doesn't look like RK's usual work standard.I agree the average Fox engraving is nothing to write home about.Maybe it's Fox's answer to the "Not the czar's Parker."

i believe rj Kornbrath was Austrian trained, gough by his father. i own a kornbrath engraved shotgun(1925).what part of this gun was supposed to have been engraved by him? i just don't see it.

I'm with Kutter on this one. There is nothing about the scrollwork on the barrels that appears to me to be the work of RJK.

So to be polite it could be said it is work attributed to RJK or in the style of RJK. That aside it comes down to evaluation of the amount, extent and quality of work done. Since I assume no record or card exists for this gun we are on our own determining what it is and where it came from. Kind of like a legend gun. Legend is that this gun came from here or was made by him for someone else. I guess for 100+K is should have a good legend or the new owner has the right to invent his own legend.

Roger, I commented on the disparity in the engraving because the scroll work looked coarse to me. Kornbrath's technique was so fluid that I couldn't see it in the auction images.
Even his deep relief work always has carefully produced and evenly spaced cross hatching. His hounds always look the same as well.
My art teacher chided me that every line in cross hatching is important, it's not cross scribbling ( which is what you get when shading in haste).

So, I don't consider any of that condemnation. I consider it to be reason to investigate further. I don't spend 200 large without confirming investigation.

If the provenance is irrefutable, the set is what it is, and the market will set a value.

My gut at this time is that there's some "stretch" in the level of contribution involving the two artist's. Maybe a screw head here, and a grip cap there, but the provenance needs to really step up to get me to come off it. This one's going to need 1st hand documentation.

As in the Monumental Shooting Park in Baltimore where Ansley grew up!!

Why did Puglisi have a full page ad for this gun in a recent issue of Shooting Sportsman and now we have it turn up at RIA? Hmmm....

All you have to do is compare the Kornbrath examples I posted to the ones on the gun for sale. The differences should immediately be obvious.
Jim

Maybe because Jack is dead, and his son is trying to operate the gun biz as he thought Jack would- RIA--Randomly Interspersed A-holes- great fotos though.

Kornbrath was Austrian trained, his father was one of Europe's leading engravers, RJK came to the USA in 1910 and worked until a stroke in '37. The 1911 that Jim posted is one of a matched pair, now residing in the collection of Robert M. Lee and denoted in his latest book.

I am not familiar with Albert Coston but perhaps Roger Bleile can comment...