doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com An interesting rifle

Robert Bruce Horsfall, 1911. Wildlife illustrator.

MP, the number of books on extinct animals is astounding, especially the charismatic megafauna like this.

But these particular engravings are more interesting to me because they are from the early 20th century when most folks were still wrestling with the ideas of evolutionary descent.

While I like the drawing - I'm really interested in the person who had this done. The way I look at it, he was not wealthy, and I suspect he was an avid hunter who took this rifle in to the field a lot. If he had been rich, there would have been figures on the right side of the action. Even with the bolt, there is room for more animals to be inlaid. And there is no engraving on the barrel or other parts. Also, I tend to think that a rich mans gun would not be so beat up - of course that is easily proven wrong with other rifles.

The wood and entire rest of the gun looks factory to me, where a rich man would have it custom stocked. So, I think this is someone who might be more like me and had an interest in this particular topic and just enough money that he could scrape together to get this done. I bet it was his only customized rifle.

Well, that is extrapolating well beyond the data, of course, but I do wish I could figure it out. And I wish even more that I had bought it. Because if I had, I guarantee it would be elk hunting this fall.

Down the road from me is a 2nd generation Marlin collector. I don't know that he would be interested in this type of rifle; as I understand him to be more of the type of collector who has a pristine example of every Marlin variant to ever roll on off the line. But perhaps he will know something about this rifle or a way to find out more.

Does the Museum in Cody WY have any archives of the Marlin stuff?

Cody has all the original Marlin Factory records.......very nice and congenial people to work with....factory letters, information, questions etc.........M-F for the Firearms Records Office.......

If you have a serial number they can give you the original factory worksheet information showing exactly how the gun left the factory, including custom and factory standard engraving, wood, barrels etc., and if it was ever returned and what changes the factory made....etc., etc., etc........if the factory billed for it, they have a record of it....

Cody Firearms Museum Records Office
Phone: 307-578-4031 Fax: 307-578-4079
Email: cfmrecords@bbhc.org.................. http://www.bbhc.org/firearms/records.cfm

Buffalo Bill Historical Center........

Not wanting to be pedantic, but, didn't the Spanish Empire disolve long before the Unifiction of Germany (the first one)in the 1870's? Before that Germany was a collection of small independant states that were themselves pretty impotent in world collonisation. I'm not at all sure it is the British Bulldog either, they haven't got long jaws like the snarling animal portrayed. The two smaller animals look like Wolves to me trying to see off the Sabre-toothed Cat (No longer called 'Tiger' in modern textbooks). Surely it's nothing more than a picture of two types of predator just arguing over the ownership of a young Elephants corpse?

Harry

Wasn't Professor George Edward Challenger one of the leading characters in Conan Doyle's book 'The Lost World' when the said 'Prof' claimed to have found live Dinosaurs and other ancient life forms on massive flat topped mountain in the South American jungle? If so, there have been at least three films based upon this story.

Harry

Exactly! One of my favorite books but the movies have never done credit to the book in any respect.

Your not wrong there, but Hollywood has never been know for being accurate about anything.

Harry

I wonder if the engraving on the Marlin has not been done by the artist of the original painting or someone close to the artist. Some painters have engraved and vice versa so I just wonder.Alvin White comes to mind right away and he was capable of about any applied or fine art.Charlie Russell did a 95 Winchester with an elk,I believe,supposedly scratched on with a sharpened nail.Just a thought.

Who knows,, it could have been an (artist) painters attempt to engrave or etch the same scene. No telling at this point who did it I guess.

I wonder about the loading gate screw. I appears to have been left in place while the work was done and worked into the pattern as a handy flower center. None of the other screw heads or tips are so done.
Perhaps it was stuck in place on the old rifle. 'Hell with it,,make it a flower'

The scroll work itself isn't very well laid out for what there is of it. It's not something an accomplished engraver would turn out. It has it's moments but for the most part it doesn't begin to flow as any sort of scroll work should. The lines are the wrong thicknesses and in wrong positions. Just arbitrary fillers in many cases w/some leaves added here and there.