doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 20K for a Gun with Laser-cut Engraving?

Wonder how many people will stand in line for the new Beretta SL3 with its 20k price tag and laser cut engraving? Are they kidding? After reading the latest Shooting Sportsman I guess they are not.

Laser engraving has come a long way but it doesn�t belong on that gun.

Not I, but I'm fine with it on a lesser priced gun like this.




My bad, eeb said engraving, not checkering. Sorry, here's the laser cut engraving.









SRH

When I was a young man a person did say to me when buying a gun remember "You shoot with the gun not its bloody engraving!!!" I have always kept this in mind when looking for another gun.

True.

Only problem is when someone is trying to charge you for the sub par engraving.

Elaborate engraving on a shotgun is pure affectation, making a statement of the owner's status to those around her i.e. gilding an axe or a hoe.

But engraving is supposed to artistic. What�s on that Beretta is simply robot doodle.

Eeb,

It is similar to getting a robo sales call from Heather.

I like modest understated engraving like my lower grade Parker�s. Never had anybody comment on them. Have a Beretta Silver Pigeon III bought used, totally covered in machine engraving , cookie cutter like thousands of others. It gets remarked all the time.

I used to explain its machine work, not real, few understand. Now get a complement just say thanks.

Boats

What makes this a $20K gun other than them saying that is the price? From these pictures I simply cannot see it.

A long way from top of the range gun but a fine work horse all the same the ubiquitous Webley & Scott 700 with just enough engraving to stop it looking as if it is just made of pieces of plane steel. It was at least a man's hand that did the engraving.

Wow is all I can say, and not in a good way. Looks like a 3500$ gun. No checkering? They must think they are Peter Hofer.

http://www.beretta.com/en/sl3/

Yep. And the call was collect.

Ed

Engraving was just a way to hold more oil on the metal surface when it started. Then it became an expression of art. Funny thing is if we knew how little it cost for top of the line engraving we be less willing to over pay for it. I�ve seen the order book for big name makers and it cost three or four pounds on a gun selling for 50-100 pounds. Now it doubles the gun value in many cases. That�s a good investment at resale.

This is the revealing bit from the catalog:

"The SL3 is also available in a mirror polished version, requiring hours of hand polishing on every surface.
Note: A fixed surcharge is applied on this version."

English makers have told me the same, it costs more to have the gun naked rather than hand engraved with the house style.

Funny that no comment was posted about the dummy sideplates.

Really King? Do you feel that way about all art? Is hanging a beautiful painting in your home an affectation?

oops double post

Yes, I feel that way about all art. Like the wine game, a lot of humbug, bloody nonsense. For generations my family has been involved in art, several members professionally as painters. Nancy is a professional.painter, taught by Group of Seven Lismer, and Colville and Harris Jr.

What's a beautiful panting to me may be kitsch to others. But tarted-up shotguns as above make no sense to me; I'd feel foolish taking one into a blind. What's the point? I feel the same about my other religion: aircraft. Like Joe Wood, I have the best type for the mission. Gold leaf wouldn't be an improvement.

If you want to see goofy side plates read the next article about the latest from AG&L.

I guess I would argue, as might your wife, that an appreciation for art is not necessarily an affectation or a signal as to one�s station in life. It may just be an appreciation for artistry. Fine if you don�t care for it. No need to attribute to others base motivations that you have no idea if they exist or not. King, it�s your inner Commie sneaking out. lol

Yeah, I'm a plain-as-pudding guy. Art on a shotgun is fine until it detracts from the line. The W&S above is about right for me.

James, not belabouring but this may put a smile on your face, from Frye's Words with Power, Being a Second Study of The Bible and Literature:

"In Russeau's early essay on whether the arts had improved or corrupted human life, and his following traits on the origin of inequality, it was suggested that civilization was full of the corruptions engendered by the ostentation and luxury of an over-privileged class. Whether or not art is man's nature, in Burke's phrase, the arts are full of what is profoundly unnatural."

As an artist, of course I like art on a shotgun. If shotguns were just tools, we would buy an 870 and be done with it. To me, that lazer engraving is not art, but just machine doodling as someone put it.

I just bought a Baretta SBT that has a stock that was cut in half and poorly re-attached, with a chunk missing. I'm going to make it right again, and paint a realistic yet subdued portrait of mother nature on one side with a gold leaf halo, and a flamingo head portrait on the other, also with a gold leaf halo, as one of nature's emissaries, similar to a major oil painting I completed recently by the same title. I think the renaissance style it will be painted in fits a nicely engraved Italian gun with a gold trigger. I can't wait to get started on it, and I don't care a whit if it's to no one else's taste. As the quote says above, "the arts are full of what is profoundly unnatural." It's going to be epic, and I'm going to enjoy the heck out of it, and all the comments it will get at the trap range.