Thank you for the info. Here's a little background on the questions,
I have a "Man-nook", not big enough to call a cave but a small area of my house that my wife lets me decorate to my taste, outdoor prints on the wall, decoy collection, my Alladin kerosene lamps from my living in a tent life, outdoor knick-knacks that interest me that she doesn't find offensive(no Farrah Fawcet posters). Rummaging through the gun safe I found I have a few hammer sxs's from a couple of countries, cool. I decided to put up a display of hammers sxs's from common gun making countries. I have Swedish, German, Belgium, Italian, Spanish and English hammer sxs's on the wall. I need a French hammer sxs, well they are a little more difficult to find in my price range, retired truck driver cheap. My Belgium sxs is a converted pinfire with Belgium proof marks, the locks are marked Victor Collet. So French pinfire sxs's seem to be more common than a centerfire hammer shotgun.
I bought a pretty nice representative French pin fire, Lefauchaux underlever, still has a lot of case color left, pretty decent shape for a 170 years old. I will get it next Tuesday. It is heavily/deeply stamped with French proofs, not like my Darne or Costo Super but St. Etienne , a crown over crossed palm leafs and three crosses around the palm leafs, a 17.0 and a z4. Proofmarks are only on the barrel nothing on the action flats other than the z4. I'm thinking this is French. Then the kicker, on the rib in gold is DAMAS BERNARD, block letters just like I typed. From what I've read Damas Bernard is Bernard Damascus steel from Belgium.
So is the shotgun French or imported and proofed in France. I can't find any reference to French proofmarks for mid 1800's France.
Thank you for looking.
