doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com How do they "sign"...

In light of the recent, very enlightening threads on engravers and their work, I have been pondering a question. I asked this question on another familiar forum, but received no replies. Here's the question.

When looking at an engraved piece, how does one recognize a particular engraver's work? After many years and hundreds of pieces, I know engraver's still are able to identify their own work or that of a fellow craftsman. Do they make certain marks or insert esoteric signatures to identify their work? How would I know if my gun was engraved by a true master or simply a talented student of the artform?

I enjoy looking at beautifully enbellished guns and would like to know how to identify the work of certain engravers, such as our own master, Ken Hurst. I have always enjoed seeing his work, and would love to find one of his pieces in a shop someday, but how can I be sure it is his work? Thanks for the feedback.

Regards,
Charles

Just a guess: some may have a mark indicating the artist but engravers at a certain level let their work speak for itself to the cognoscenti and may consider a distinguishing mark as too commercial or condescending to others.

Assuming I'm not one of the cognoscenti, how would I know whose work I'm holding in my hand. Is there a list of cognoscenti, with whom I might compare notes and decide who the true craftsman might be?

Regards,
Charles

Most DIANA grade Brownings are "signed" by the engraver.

Affordable piecework on the Brownings. Although most look askance when I say it, I'm a great admirer of Reno Greco. I doubt he ever saw a ringneck and the big rabbit looks like the Easter Bunny except no basket of eggs. The master can't do them all. When the light strikes it a certain way, it appeals. Lightyears ahead of a stickbird on a Smith 2E.

jack

Now-a-days, the fashion in Italy and the UK seems to be to sign the gun. If the work is one engraver only, the signiture is by the trigger guard. In the case, most frequently seen in Italy, where one person does, typically, the scroll and another a game scene, one signs on the scene, one by the trigger guard. In Greater Germania, they sometimes use names, sometimes initials.
A while ago, signitures were not the fashion. The Sumners did wonderful scroll on Bosses and others and I've never seen a signiture, although Boss kept a lot of work orders so one can track them. Ken Hunt used to do a mark, but, I believe, has gone to a block letter signiture. His offspring both use full names. Malcolm Appleby sometimes used a totemic tree as his signiture. One example I know, on a McKay Brown, fills the whole bottom of the action. Otherwise, his work was pretty unmistakable.

Leo sums it up pretty well.

Call me old fashioned but I have no wish to see an engraver's signature on a gun. By all means record it in the dimension book or even work a tiny symbol into the pattern somewhere, but to my jaundiced eye, it has all the class of those Versace T-shirts that have to tell everyone that it is a 'Versace' T-shirt.

Best work stands up to inspection and does not need the signature to show admiriers that it is the work of a 'name'.

I have a custom Berreta that was beautifully engraved by Vasco Revera with an excellent scroll pattern. He signed his name next to the trigger.

For the prices high-grade engraved guns go for these days through dealers or at auction, I would not touch one unless it was signed if I were looking for a specific engraver or just wanted a documented engraved gun, either one. A lot of auctions over the past few years have featured unsigned guns that are "attibuted" to so-and-so but without an ironclad provenance you are wasting your time. A few of the earlier high-grade merican double guns were "ghost-signed" (e.g., hidden) by the Goughs, Ed Latham, Joseph Loy and other masters because most manufacturers of the era would not permit individual signatures on a gun. It was a Parker Gun, for example, not a Gough gun, was the explanation. It is possible to conjecture with some degree of accuracy who engraved these earlier guns by studying individual engraving styles over the years then comparing them to the gun in hand. The forehead treatment on Joseph Loy's dogs, especially spaniels, is a good example. So far as the modern Italian masters go, I don't believe I've seen a gun in the last 15 years that the engraver did not sign as a proud verification of his artistic expression. KBM