doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Engraving Identification BIRDS

I'm with Skeetz for the left side. Hen pheasants on the right.

Miller,

The Chinese Ringneck came over in 1881 to Oregon. However, pheasant were in the UK a very long time before 1800.

Ken

I have a 1895/96 Clabrough, Golcher & Co catalog reprint obtained from Cornell's Publishing. This gun appears to be their base model 1 "Field" which sold for $50.00 with choice of Steel or Damascus barrels.

Obviously, mine has Damascus. Engraving appears to have essentially the same coverage though not identical to this one The illustration also shows two birds in an oval although the ones in the picture are flying rather than standing as are mine. Lockplate is marked J P Clabrough & Bros England. Mine does not have the word England here. It does carry Birmingham proofs.

Company address is listed as 605 Market St / Grand Hotel Block / San Francisco Cal. The factory is listed as 15 St Mary's Square, Birmingham, England.

Another thought I had for the ones on the left plate was Hungarian Partridge but I am simply not familiar enough with them to say positively.

Other grades are listed in this catalog at prices from $75.00 to $250.00. These have more engraving coverage, more checkering & all except this Field model have a Greener Style Crossbolt, while this #1 has a Doll's Head.

Extra Fine guns were stated to be built to order @ $300.00, $350.00 & $400.00

In comparison, in this catalog an 0 grade Smith was $35.00, a PH Parker $52.00 & a G grade Lefever $45.00. These were the lowest grades listed for these makes at that point in time & all prices quoted are for non-ejector. All of these were available with ejectors at extra cost except the Parkers. This catalog did not list Parkers with ejectors even up through the B grade, which was the highest grade they listed.

My initial impression was also guinea fowl, but these don't have any of the characteristic headgear. They lack the helmet or tufts of some, and the back-of-the-head fringe of the vulturine GF. Or made from a poor painting.

Lagopus while I understand the logic behind your thoughts I have seen Scott engravings to include most any species of Wildfowl and particularly Waders.

At that period of time the shot the Pi$$ out of anything they could eat or sell feathers off of.

Will

Those birds may be shaped like guineas, but I'm still convinced the stripes across the breasts are meant to suggest prairie chickens. Anything else have the stripes going that way?...Geo