I can't see any English proof marks on those barrels.
Tony,
I can see:
- 'CHOKE' (not a proof mark per se, but stamped by the Proof House)
- '10' and 'C' in diamond
- Intertwined 'C' & 'P' (can't make out the crown above it)
- 'Crown over V'
- Another one I can't quite make out (London provisional proof?)
Nigel.
I make out the same proof marks and I'm pretty sure that the large deeply stamped mark is the London provisional proof. I can also see the "10" bore mark between the provisional proof and the "crown over V" view mark. All the black powder marks that I would expect to see are there.
Based on the marks these barrels were proofed in London in or after 1887 based on the "choke" and "10C within a diamond" stamps and probably pre-1904 since it is not nitro proofed. That fits with the 1902 completion date from the AG&L records.
I wonder if this gun was not rebarreled but that the original records are incorrect and this was, in fact, a 10 bore gun when it left Henry Atkin's in 1902. If the current barrels are 1" longer than the original barrels and it was rebarreled using the original rib then you should be able to find a seam where 1" of rib was added.
The "DEAC Amhearst NH" is an importers stamp. If this gun was shipped to the US in 1902 it seems to have been sent abroad at some point and then re-imported by DEAC sometime after the Gun Control Act of 1968.
This may remain one of those mysteries in life that are never fully answered.
