Was curious to see if there really is a difference? I have read �done in the London style� or �Birmingham made, based on the engraving �. Is there really a difference? I would think if you paid enough any B�ham gun could easily be a �London Gun�. Any insight or pics would be great!

Engraving was an outworker job, still is for the most part. The same engravers did guns from all over the country most likely.

It has taken me many years to figure out that a lot of what I took to be true about 19th century gunmaking, because I read it somewhere, was not.

While I suppose individual London and Birmingham engravers might have stylistic preferences or particular aptitudes, the intertwined nature of the London and Birmingham trade and its use of outworkers would blur any geographical origins.

What I have noticed is an evolution in engraving patterns through the late 1850s and 1860s, and that's as far as I'll go.

Many provincial makers offered �London Pattern� sidelocks featuring best rose and scroll or other patterns to customer choice. Dickson featuring Sumner Often the work of Sumner or Kell can be identified on Birmingham products. By the same token, the London makers often turned to Birmingham for actions and components (e.g. Westley Richards @ AA Brown). Characterize it as Symbiotic or Incestuous as you like.

There were engravers and engravers .Some were true artists others did the job to the price paid .
Look at the work of Henry Morris a Birmingham engraver who ran an engraving shop after WW1. Morris had numerous men working for him and trained many apprentices .Some of his work was as good as any I have seen especially his very fine detailed work.I do know that he trained at either Scott's or possibly Webley prior to the amalgamation and took on his last apprentice in 1959 and worked on until the 60's .

I have a Brummy "best" that cost as much as an H&H Royal when new. I think the engraving is pretty solid work and stands up to most.

I believe one of Henry Morris's last apprentices may have been Ron Collings, a very talented engraver currently based in California. I had the pleasure of meeting Ron during a time that he resided in Canada.
We certainly talked about Henry Morris because at that time I owned two guns engraved by Henry. Henry's Engraving was second to none.

Can an "expert" distinguish between London cut engraving and Birmingham cut engraving of the same pattern? I think definitely not. Can an "expert" make a pretty good guess based on the pattern itself? Yes. Yes because house patterns are fairly well known and because most boxlocks were made in Birmingham (which dramatically eases the question). The question if engraved in London or Birmingham falls into the same category as was the gun made in London or Birmingham. A much better question is, "What was the original quality level of this gun?"

DDA

I concur with all the comments above: generally there is no correlation between engraving style or quality and the geographical origin of the gun.
Given the higher wages and costs of London production, I think it would be fair to say that the quality of a TRULY London made gun is ON AVERAGE higher than one from Birmingham and hence the execution may be better. Many top outworkers moved to London for the higher wages but then many stayed and made a good living in Birmingham.
When I look at the work that came out of the P Webley organisation and was retailed by the like of Lang, Evans and Blanch I see engraving of fantastic quality, easily as good as (presumably) London guns made of the same era.
I have always wondered about the Kell style engraving that Blanch used on there Best gun between the turn of the Century and 1st WW. I know that these guns are basically of Birmingham origin but the engraving is so 'Kell' I have always been tempted to think they were engraved in the Kell studios. But we will never know for sure: was there a Birmingham studio doing Kell style work?!

Toby,

Kell style includes the "creeping vine" engraving often seen on Blanch guns?

I retired a decade ago and I decided that I would learn to engrave firearms, which took me 3 years to become somewhat competent. My desire to learn to engrave was to be able to embellish the double rifles that I built for myself, instead of sending them to another engraver. I also wanted to be able to restore engraving of English shotguns in my collection as well those that I would be restoring in the future.

The task of learning to engrave beginning at age 67 was one of the most difficult things I ever attempted to do. I learned two major lessons during this time: (1) I could have cut the learning time in half if I had purchased a Steve Lindsey Air Graver when I started learning to engrave (instead of 2 years later)instead of learning to engrave with a hammer and chisel graver; and (2) that there are two different types of engravers (a)ARTIST engravers and (b) CRAFTSMEN engravers (like me). The artist engraver is a person who had great natural drawing and artist skills from birth and the craftsman engraver is a person who had great natural mechanical skills from birth and can very easily master about any trade skills be it mechanical, electrical,and so forth.

Of course there will be some discussion of these two types of engravers, and one comes to my mind (one of the best engravers of the world today) Phil Coggan who is both a master craftsman and a master engraver.

Recently, I met a famous English engraver who still works even though he is now past retirment years of age. As I discussed engraving with him he confirmed my thoughts on artist and craftsman engravers as he said that when he went to work as an apprentice at a London gunmaker he was put to learning to engrave, because that was what the gunshop need in an apprentice at that time. He further stated that he not previously studied art at school or had any what he would say as real artistic skills beforehand.

Learning to engrave has brought to be me an ability to go right to the heart of examining a firearm engraving that I did not have before. An ability to examine the engraving skills of the original engraver as well has his/her style.

As a result one of the things that I see in engraving of English shotguns of the past that much engraving was done to cover up the surface very quickly and if the engraving work is examined under magnifications it can best be described as impressionist engraving. The details of the scrolls are not "done that well" ( I take this term from the late master engraver, Lynton McKenzie who like to use it). And as Lyndon states in his first of three engraving lessons videos, the engravers were not paid very well in those days and they had to produce one or more complete engraved shotguns per week.

Today many engravers use a microscope to engrave and can produce the finest realistic engraving the world has ever seen. At 78 years of age I could not engrave without a microscope.

So where am I going in all this writing. To my mind a Birmingham gun or a London gun was engraved in the style, detail and skill that the customer paid for. If it was a fourth or third quality gun then it was likely that the engraving would have been done by an apprentice engraver in his later stages of his apprenticeship. Even best quality guns would have the trigger guards and screws done by the apprentices' and the action engraving done by the masters. Ken Hunt, now in his 80's says this was still the case in Kell's workshop when Ken went there in the 1950's. According to what I remember Ken saying was that a best quality gun coming out of Kell's workshop would have the work of several masters on it and that Kell himself would do the animal engraving as well as some of the other engraving that he liked to do. And of course the gun would have had some of Ken's work as an apprentice on it as well. Pull out your Kell engraved guns and look at them under a magnification to see if you can pick out the difference.

Learning to engrave has taught me to be able to quickly look at a English shotgun and see the two or three different people who engraved the gun, whether they were London, Birmingham or elsewhere based.

Also to my mind (and to Doug Tate for example) Birmingham gunmakers were able to build a London pattern best quality side lock ejector equal to what was built in London. Therefore there must have been engravers in Birmingham up to that task as well. Of course, I know that the likes of Holland & Holland and other London gunmakers had Birmingham best quality guns sent to them from time to time in the white to be engraved and finished in the London shops. Just like Purdey or Holland will ship a gun over to Wales today for Coggan to engrave, or to Italy for that matter.

Just recently on another website about double rifles was posted the photos of two Holland & Holland (likely Birmingham made ) double rifle made originally for a Indian royal. I am including a link to that post so that you can scroll down and view the action engraving of these rifles. They have some of the most interesting engraving styles that I encountered on guns/rifles of that period. Closely examine the backs and centers of the scrolls and you will see work added to the scrolls that you will have never seen before on any guns. Wow, I would like to know who engraved these rifles and what gave him the idea of this style. Was it the customer or whom?

http://forums.nitroexpress.com/showflat....;gonew=1#UNREAD

Is Ron Collings still doing engraving work? Contact info?

bushveld,
Thanks for that excellent post. I have come to appreciate engraving more with each passing year.

Let me repost this from the Reilly line: Interesting thoughts: (Bushvelt, are you Highvelt?)

this is an interesting comment from the site "Engravers Cafe" on engravers from the 19th century by a poster "Highveldt," which is relevant to the above discussion on Reilly finishing his own guns. It was a comment on Terry Weiland's article on engraving in which Terry sort of said engraving was really used as a type of "stove paint."

https://books.google.td/books?id=de9XBAA...int&f=false

The chat was funny but very informative:
http://www.engraverscafe.com/archive/index.php/t-10485.html?s=cfbe6b81099c03ea2457b7cbdbf3f47e

Engraving is like....stove paint? I don't think that is what he said. Who knows what a so called gun writer ever means, but here is what he said: "The truth is, a bulino-engraved gun will never look as good as the day it comes out of its protective box. Every scratch and bump will deface the engraving until it looks like a flyspecked lithograph in a cheap saloon. At which point a coat of stove paint might not be a bad idea."

I do not care much for Mr. Weiland's writings, even though I have some of his books. Weiland quotes some of Mr. Greener's opinions about the gun trade in this article--a person I do not think I would have liked in his day. Although Mr. Greener was not found guilty of stealing the Anson & Deeley action design in court, many tradesmen of his day as well as I in this day think that he did steal it.

Weiland raises a point about the changes in valuation of engraving on a gun in UK. I am a English gun restorer and only a learner engraver (in order to repair some engraving on guns I restore). Engraving and engravers were just another craft/trade in the time of the E.M. Riley shotgun Weiland references. For example: E.J. Churchill sends a note and a set of barrels over to the excellent engraver Mr. Sumner on the morning of March 18, 1904 with the note reading: "Barrels of 1398 (gun number) To name (engrave the Churchill name and address), rough rib & engrave it these must be here tonight as they have to be blacked & go away tomorrow morning certain. Please Oblige; signed E.J. Churchill" From this note we can assume the Barrel blacker worked all night to get the barrels blacked for the customer gun to be shipped, as it usually takes 5 or 6 blacking cycles for a barrel to be completed--the blacker probably did not finish until late the next day.

In most shops, including the London best shops of Purdey, Holland, Boss, Stephen Grant and so forth engravers earned about the same as a head barrel maker, stocker and actioner. In 1875 Freedrick Beesley (later inventor of the Beesley spring opener action and which has been used by Purdey ever since they purchased the rights from Beesley in 1880) made 4 pounds six pence for the month, while J. Mace Sr., Engraver made about the same. During the same month J. Lucas, Purdey's famous engraver who developed the Purdey house style of engraving made the astounding amount of 8 pounds---This was twice the amount of wages to paid to any other Purdey craftsman.

In March 1936 at Purdey's J. Lovett, Engraver was paid 3 pounds, 8 shilling and 4 pence, while the famous Purdey actioner Ernest D. Lawrence was paid 3 pounds, 5 shillings.

However at the end of November 1952 Ernest D. Lawrence was earning 12 pounds, 9 shillings as an actioner and the young apprentice Ken Hunt, Engraver earned 3 pounds 5 shillings.

We all should rejoice that the demand in best quality English, Italian, German, Belguim and other shotguns (primarily demand driven by American buyers) has changed the fate and earnings of not only engravers, but the skilled gunmaker trades.

These are just some rambling thoughts of an old man who loves fine guns, mostly fine English guns.

Very interesting post, bushveld, with an interesting perspective. Thanks for posting that.



One minor correction, it's Lynton McKenzie, with a "t", not a "d". I was pleased and fortunate to have been able to spend some time with Lynton at the NMLRA national matches in Friendship, IN for a couple years before his passing. He was an avid m/l shooter and hunter.

SRH

Stan;

Corrected.

Argo44;

You are astute.

No, I think that is just a house style done by more modestly priced 'trade' engravers. It fills the space with little work and was probably a very economic way of finishing a gun 'down to a price'.

This is an example of the Kell style on a Blanch backaction I recently acquired:

[img:left]https://scontent.fltn2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v...amp;oe=5D844016[/img]

Toby thanks for posting that photo, it clarifies the situation. It also confirms I have cheap tastes in engraving, those creeping vines are my favorite style.

Beautiful gun Toby!

In my opinion.... W&C Scott and W.W. Greener employed the best engravers of the era. Joe Brown, Walter Howe and Harry Tomlinson�s finest work was in a class of its own. The well known �house� engravers that the posh London makers frequently used were to me....one trick ponies.

Toby;
That is a magnificent example of work of a true artist engraver from the Kell shop. Significant French engraving school style influence.

Indeed Toby, I could look at that gun for hours.
Reminds me of Belgian engraving, which turns me on most...lovely stuff
Franc

Lovely to get such appreciative comments on my new toy. The gun dates from 1913 as can be seen from the Roman numerals on the triggerguard bow. They seem to have given up the Kell engraving by the 1st WW.
Here are a couple of other views.

[img:left]https://scontent.fltn2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v...amp;oe=5D9C33E1[/img]

[img:left]https://scontent.fltn2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v...amp;oe=5D90213B[/img]

[img:left]https://scontent.fltn2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v...amp;oe=5D84C014[/img]

And here is a photo of the 1910 bar action version which sadly I don't own:

Toby the filing on your round body Blanch is superb. I prefer it to the bar action.

This is an old set of posts, but it seems to relate to my Edwin Smith gun and Henry [Harry] Morris . Both Edwin Smith and Mr. Morris had their shops tucked into a rear location of St. Mary's Row in Birmingham. An internet search seems to match the style used by Mr. Morris and the scenes on the Edwin Smith gun. Other names found nearby at this location and similarly engraved were a Bissell gun, G. E. Lewis and Sons, and one marked with Henry Morris' name. The Greener office was just next door.











This photo is curtesy of Roy Smith, who took the photo in 1978. St. Mary's street is the location.

I would love to see that Blanch engraving, but I cannot get them to open.

Great looking gun,Daryl

A little known or largely forgotten Birmingham engraver Henry Morris has been overlooked . Morris finished guns that bore his name as well as engraving for both London and Birmingham trades .
He was apprenticed to either Webley or W&C Scott shortly prior to their amalgamation .He served in WW1 and after set up an engraving shop with I'm told places for 10 engravers .He empolyed as well as taking on apprentices .His last apprentice being taken on in 1959.
He was according to his last apprentice another largely " unknown" man of great skill IMO ,whom I have been asked not to name , told me he was very inventive and established several patterns that became fairly standard .He also did game scenes with very fine detailed work .
He was working certainly into the 1970's .
Boothroyd was I understand a friend and was planning to write a book about him , but this sadly never came to pass .

Truly excellent comments from Bushvelt and Toby. In reference to Steve Nash's original comment, here is the evolution of Reilly engraving which might be relevant - this from the Reilly history. It is reposted here because I can't find another example of comparative engraving from one maker over the course of 60 years:

*38 1820-1900: Reilly Engraving

Reilly engraving evolved over the years and understanding its evolution may be helpful in dating guns. (Disclaimer: this is a cursory analysis of the engraving found on extant Reilly long-guns):

-- In the 1820’s-1830’s Reilly engraving was mostly simple “vine and scroll” patterns used by many gun makers at the time.*38a



-- By the early 1840’s and continuing into the 1950’s the motifs had advanced to a “large scroll” or “English scroll” design.*38b.



There may be more complex engraving during this time period on guns which no longer exist. For instance the company showed examples of embossing and chasing at the 1851 Crystal Palace world’s fair.*38c

Throughout the 1850’s and much of the 1860’s, the engraving continued to echo the above “simple vine and scroll” and “English Scroll” work although becoming more complex. Reilly built guns for Rajah’s and royalty during this period which were obviously higher grades but his bread and butter clientele were the mid-level army officers and lower-level country gentlemen. He did not choose to compete head-to-head for the high-end market with extremely ornate engravings, at least from the extent guns available today.*38d



-- Beginning in the mid-1860’s he began to used increasingly intricate and delicate “rose and scroll” patterns. He abandoned depictions of wildlife.*38e



-- And by the 1880’s and 1890’s his tight “rose and scroll” engravings were tasteful and pleasing and pretty ubiquitous although he also advertised plain-Jane “keepers guns." *38f



There are guns with wildlife scenes engraved on them, mostly from the muzzle-loading period. Some of this engraving is quite realistic. however, many of the depictions of birds and animals on Reilly engravings are cartoonish.*38g Some experienced London gunsmiths (David Trevallion among them) have said that many of the engravers in London at the time had never seen a wild deer, partridge or duck in their lives and drew from impressions or from others’ sketches. Whatever, it appears Reilly did not specialize in fine depictures of wild-life. This was left to other, higher-end makers.



Most London gun-makers during the 1860’s used outworker trade engravers. However, because Reilly was engraving about everything he sold at the time, retailed pistols, retailed long-guns, bayonets, knives, etc. - it is possible that he had an in-house engraving capability. This would have enabled him to meet orders twice as fast as other gun-makers and perhaps reduce costs.

Here's a boxlock , I think marked as Henry Morris the maker. [picture picked off internet] Quite a bit of similarity compared to the Edwin Smith sidelock engraving. Thanks to gunman for his thoughts on Henry Morris. I'm sure he has handled many with Morris engraving. Both the Edwin Smith gun and the Henry Morris gun are actually quite rare as both of these men made or engraved guns usually for marking by others.

A fair criticism that has been laid about some of the engraving on older , thats pre 1900 guns , is that birds in game scenes look like bottles with wings .But it is a fair comment to say that the only pheasants and partridge many of these men had seen were those hanging up in the butchers window .

Gunman , a very true fact indeed .
I am a long time friend of John & Brian Wiseman , Brian was an apprentice of Henry Morris . Interestingly although both of us are in our late 70's Brian ALWAYS refers to Henry Morris as Mr. Morris because that is all he was ever allowed to address the MASTER as .
Interestingly, many of the Birmingham artisans NEVER saw a live animal , I will always remember travelling by train from Birmingham to Wolverhampton and as we approached Tipton on the outskirts of Birmingham some children let out a loud scream and rushed to the window , I looked up to see what had caused the commotion , it was a horse beside the canal and the first time the children had seen a real live horse.

I don't think that's a great excuse... even though the depictions of birds that look like flying turnips is better than I could do. There was a real interest in ornithology in England in those pre-1900 years, and all one needed to do was go to a Museum or look in a book to see what most species of game birds looked like. Accurately cutting that image into steel would be the hard part. Audobon published his first book in 1827.

Daryl's E. Smith and Sons gun is beautiful.

Access to books wasn't guaranteed to engravers in 19th century England, and piecework is how most engravers were paid. The Kell shop is credited with bringing more life to the game scenes, but other engravers were developing more life like renditions. Sumner, WW Greener, WC Scott and Kell produced work that buyers were willing to pay for and to add a distinction and value to there individual products. There was a definite change in the trade around the 1890's. Just my opinion.

Wow Mark Sentences!! Well done brother. Did your editor help with that one

Yes ,yes she did:)

If you scroll back to the picture of G.E. Lewis and Sons you can see to the lower left a sign of ???ord and Jones, Polishers. What type of business was the “polisher?”

Not everyone is (was) Winston Churchill.

Best,
Ted

Could polishers be prepping guns for engraving or case hardening?

Mc, that would have been my guess, but it would have been just a guess. ‘ Hoping someone closer to the Birmingham quarter might know for sure..

The polisher for my Greener was a man named, Jones for 6 shilling. There was also a "smoother". I was thinking the polisher was a metals guy and the smoother was a wood guy, but I don't know for sure. Interesting, at least to me, was that there were 3 engravers for the gun. Stokes, Horrocks, and Perry did the labels, scroll, and field figures, respectively. Perhaps 3 engravers was a norm, but I would have thought 2 was a lot.

One guy letters, one game scenes,one guy scrolls .some company's had individual pieces ,bottom metal,trigger plate, action body lettering,and game scenes so they could get work out really quick.

Isn't st ledger a polisher finisher?

Brent, your Mr. Jones is likely the Jones whose sign in pictured next to Lewis in previous text. Greener was their neighbor. I'll have to dig out my Greener file. As I recall the factory letter on my Monarch Imperial listed several engravers and other finishers who worked on the gun.
A bit later I looked at my factory letter and see---
Smoother-Watson
Polisher-Jones [paid 12 shillings]
Action filer-Camm [paid 50 shillings]
Name engraver - Stokes [paid 4 shillings]
Game and scroll engraving-Perry [paid 50 shillings]
Barrel blacker-Fletcher
There are six other workers listed for the gun, also

It took 20 shillings to make a pound.
This work was done in 1900.

Here is what Camm, Stokes , and Perry worked on. Mr. Jones, the polisher, would have had a relatively tough job on this one.

It makes sense I suppose, but it still surprised me. It took 10 months to make the gun, if I recall correctly.

I got the impression that Greener had a group of shops and each one completed guns from start to finish as somewhat independent manufacture and assembly lines.

Engraved guns done by out workers had to be turned around very quickly in days not weeks or months.

In the case of Greener, I don't think the engravers, at least not all of them, were out-house work. That they knew the names of the men, not shops, that did each type of engraving suggests to me that they were in house.

Mc, I remember a story of John Dickson sending a gun down on the train to Sumner. It was sent on a Thursday or so and they were asked to get it back early in the next week. I'm sure that various parts of the gun went to several people.

Brent, in the case of outworker or employee, maybe the factory letters from Greener supply clues.

For some tasks, a specific cost was noted, while other tasks did not show a cost. We see Mr. Jones had a business sign and his name in the factory letters was accompanied by a cost. I would guess the names with costs might be outworkers. Or maybe the employment agreement was based on piecework.

The rather complicated Monarch Imperial shown above was ordered on April 23 and finished on July 17, not quite three months.

An interesting hypothesis. Makes sense also.

I have the book with Sumner, Kell records you are correct Daryl

mc, Ted's post above shows the obvious... Even an engraver who never left the confines of a large city or saw a book with pictures of birds would have seen pigeons... unless Ray Charles was also an engraver. Ponds in city parks and rivers frequently have ducks and geese on the water. So the only valid excuse for engraving flying turnips or bottles with wings would either be a lack of talent, or pushing out crude renditions of birds as fast as possible to meet some quota.

Either way, they probably do better than I could, but I have never been tempted to buy a graver. I need a couple engraved screws for a 16 ga. E grade Lefever I recently bought, so maybe it's time to give it a try.

Here's a Webley & Scott 16 bore (1946). Can anyone tell me about this engraving? It's a lot different than the other Webley's I've owned or seen.

Nice gun. Somebody could afford the good stuff when they went gun shopping.

Best,
Ted

Not really, but it’s here.

I think that engraving is well above the level of what was standard on a post war boxlock. Some English gun makers were short on talent after the war, and it showed in the guns they produced for years.

Enjoy.

Best,
Ted

Keith,engravers were tought to engrave the way the shop said to and it was piece work so engraving a nicely formed animal would cost the engraver money.there were individuals who could do lifelike birds and animal when called to and paid for the extra time.in the Sumner book guns were delivered on Monday morning and expected back on Tuesday evening this was Dixon best engraving.

Also, just because an engraver could do nice scroll didn't mean he could replicate birds accurately. I don't believe it took a good engraver any longer to do a well executed game bird than it took a poor engraver to do a flying turnip. It's not always about the time spent, it's mostly about the artistic ability of the engraver himself, IMO.

Game scene is the toughest to pull off.

I’ve seen very, very little that I would say was worth the effort to put it on a gun.

Best,
Ted

No ,time was everything the gun was split up between engravers so a best Dixon or purdey could be completed in a few days.if you were paying for realistic game birds that's what you got if not you got a stick smoking a cigarette.sumner or Kell or Tomlinson or morris did game scenes most of the time others did scroll and basic animals.it takes a lot more effort to do a nicely finished bird or squirrel then flying turnup.

Definitely a Birmingham made gun, in Edwinson Green’s work shop and Birmingham Proofed but was it engraved in London or more probably Birmingham?

I showed it to Paul Roberts recently and he said “Kell?”.

It was ordered in 1894 , the year Harry Kell started his apprenticeship in London to his father Henry.

Frustratingly the very detailed Order in Green’s records makes no mention of the engraving or even the Tudor Roses chiselled into the fences - clearly a special order for the customer Tudor Crawshay.

Parabola, thanks. What a fine example. I have had a couple of Bonehills that had stocks treated that way. The fences on you gun are fine, but unusual.

Not the best of photographs but a Green gun I saw at Bonhams 20 years ago with almost identical engraving but differently carved fences.

Thanks to Goggle I was able to look it up and it is No. 5772, one of a pair ordered the same year 1894 by Sir. S. Crawley-Boevey Bart.

I looked them up in Green’s records but once again no mention of who did the engraving although there is a reference to the Whitworth barrels being from “Kilby” (Thomas Kilby , Barrelmaker of Steelhouse Lane )