I contacted the German Gun Collector's and inquired for any information they may have gathered for German sources of damascus or any Germanic centers that may have produced them.
They very kindly responded, with correspondence from Axel Eichendorff responding to Dietrich Apel.
In part, here is the response:
...Suhl, Ferlach, Brescia, Eibar and you name them, some smithes tried their hands in forging damascus barrels, bur few progressed beyond simple twist patterns.
...H. Anschuetz in 1811 claimed Suhl made damascus "equal to any else in the world", but he also wrote to promote Suhl gunmaking!
....Zimmer: Die Jagd-Feuergewehre,1877, p.15:
"figured damascus is predominantly forged in the villages on the banks of the river Vesdre between Liege and Verviers and is shipped from there all over the world.
In other gunmaking places mostly only lower qualities are produced, in Suhl for instance only simple twist barrels are produced, the better tubes without exception are bought in through Liege."
....There is precious little literature on the anonymous damascus Smithes.
Still the best is a series of articles by Manfred Sachse, himself an accomplished damascus master smith, published in the DWJ from 1978-1982.
To find out something about the individual smithes and their families, you will have to delve deep into the archives of the respective towns.
Once again the name of Manfred Saches surfaces.
So we have some dates with some more possible lines of research that will need to be followed...
Here is the book mentioned: Die Jagd-feuergewehre: Anleitung zur näheren Kenntniss U. Zum richtigen By Adolf Zimmer
Pete
