This week, in between navel gazing and a little blasphemy, I was thinking about Guild Guns (or guns made on the Continent without a maker's name or markings on them). I keep seeing these gun around and this got me thinking about the story I've always heard about them:
Apprentices, or members of a gun maker's guild, produced these guns as their graduation projects. Upon completion, the apprentice showed his gun to the master-level members of his guild. If they felt like the gun was well done, the apprentice was graduated and allowed into the guild as an master gun maker.
So anyway, a lot of this story doesn't make sense to me:
First, are apprentices in the European trade taught all the crafts that go into gun making - stocking, actioning, bbl making, finishing, etc - or do they have a specialty?
I believe the English system focuses on a general intro to the trade and then an apprentice is funneled into one specific area.
If they specialize, how do they go about making an entire gun?
If they know all the skills, where do they come up with the funds to make a gun? Perhaps they made it and then the guild sold it to recoups the costs? I don't know.
What I'm getting at is that I don't think I buy the story about the origins Guild Guns. The more Belgian, German, Prussian stuff I see, the more I think these no-name guns were simply guns being turned out my local gun makers for retail locations near them.
Because these guns were the cheapest ones the retailers sold, the stores didn't bother putting their names on them (why be associated with a low-grade gun?).
So what do you guys think? Is the story bunk, or am I full of it?
Thanks
OWD
Last edited by obsessed-with-doubles; 09/01/07 10:20 PM.
