Daryl,
Thanks, coming from someone of your background in collecting, I consider that a high compliment.
Roger,
You are most welcome, and to be honest I sort of stumbled into the Jerred story when I came across his unfinished personal DeLuxe gun; but was the recipient of much invaluable assistance along the way, most notably from Ken Sweet. Ken had continued his friendship with Mrs. Jerred and Charles Jr. after Mr. Jerred died; and had I not developed a trust relationship with Ken Sweet, my research would have gotten nowhere. After Mr. Jerred's death, the Jerred family was apparently besieged by folks claiming friendship; and who wanted a "keepsake" as a remembrance, so the family gave away many of Mr. Jerred's personal belongings before realizing that these "friends" were selling these items to collectors; the family felt betrayed. At that point a "fence" was in effect erected around the family; and had it not been for Ken, I would never have gotten past the gate. With Ken's introduction, I was able to correspond with Charles Jerred Jr. via email for about 3 months; and although I accumulated a thick file of email correspondence during that period, I've never met Mr. Jerred nor spoken with him a single time. But we did slowly establish a trust thru the web so that he shared many touching personal stories about his Dad; and I believe his sharing those memories was cathartic to some unknown degree. I shared the highlights of those memories and facts about his Dad in the DGJ; and attempted to relate the story as if it was being told by Mr. Jerred himself. I chose that format because I had been told by Ken Sweet that the family had not been pleased with some of the things previously published about Mr. Jerred, so my goal was to write as accurate a piece as possible; and one with which Mrs. Jerred would be pleased. So when Ken called me to tell me that the piece had been well received by Mrs. Jerred, I felt I had accomplished my goals.
Sheettx,
That is certainly an amazing Model 90, and like every one else; I have no idea who might have engraved that gun. I also doubt the existence of any detailed Marlin factory records; although one can usually establish the year of manufacture of a Marlin made gun using the serial number prefix. Interestingly, and although the scroll is not Jerred-like, if you will pull the old issues of the DGJ showing Jerred's unfinished Deluxe, and check the engraved dog on the left side lock plate; you will be amazed at the similarity of that dog scene (Jerred's personal work) to that on the Model 90. And although I can't locate the item in all the clutter in my office, Ken Sweet had sent me a copy of a business card used by Jerred and featuring two ducks in flight on the right side of a Browning Superposed; as I recall that duck scene is strikingly similar to the duck scene on the Model 90. Marlin did do special guns from time to time; and did utilize Jerred to some unknown degree, as I have a copy of a Marlin check stub where Mr. Jerred was paid $10 for subcontract engraving at $1.50/hour (master engraver rates have come a long way since the early 1950's haven't they!). When I "interviewed" Jerred, Jr; he told me he still had his Dad's old engraving ledger in which he had recorded all the guns/projects he had engraved after leaving Marlin (I had him check those records for any evidence that Jerred had engraved any Deluxe Grades after his Marlin employment ended). That book was recently for sale on eBay at $4500; don't know if it sold or not, but if he engraved this Model 90 after he left Marlin/the gunworks, the gun would be recorded in that ledger. I doubt, in the event the Model 90 was Jerred's work, that it would have been engraved before 1948; as Jerred had not earned his master engraver status until January, 1949. At any rate, I hope the history of that piece is discovered at some point; would be an interesting story.
And one final note regarding inlays, gold has always been expensive for the common man; and to illustrate the obvious, this story was shared by Mr. Sweet during my work on Mr. Jerred. Workers in the engraving department were always open to trading work to other workers within the factory for this, that, and the other in return for something they wanted or needed done; and they also worked on their own special projects. One of the Smith gun engravers custom engraved a "DeLuxe" grade for himself; and because he couldn't afford the necessary gold for Deluxe Grade inlay work, used copper instead so those inlays would have a little color. Apparently things like this were not uncommon.
Last edited by topgun; 08/20/12 10:31 PM.
