>>Comme ci, comme ça<<, that's Life... The platform is a snapshot in time, of the Life & Times of William R. Schäfer. If the platform is post 1883, the top rib should read >>& Son<<. Not sure exactly how much heavy lifting & Son did but William R Schäfer was riding the last wave, a bit past production & doing repairs, ect. & probably fine tuning Ballard rifles¿ So some Waterfowl Hunter came to him & had gotten mud in the end of his 10/12 Bore and it resembled that of those on Looney Toons Cartons, whatever & he or his heirs & assigns wanted a new tubeset. William R Schäfer probably said 10s are on their way out & 12s are the new fad. Then Schäfer either ordered a Belgian tube set or pull one from his stock. Barrel sourcing rode piggyback on Nail sourcing lines. @ one time, Nails were a very expensive product & developed stout sourcing lines to the areas that had ore, water transport & streams for hydrologic power. Actually early on when weapons mechanics couldn't build locks to a desired quality, the mechanics would task the Nail makers. Brits sourced Styria, Austria for high quality metals and the phrase >>Lymbrickes Stuff<<, which was a bastardization of Leoben-Bruck, referring to quality goods being sourced. Anyway, I digress into the minutiae of history, which is for another thread & another day.

I wouldn't consider the wares of Schaefer above those of Josef Jakob, but he was not slouch either.


Hochachtungsvoll,
Raimey
rse