doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Beautiful example of American engraving on Flues

What a strange post. Who is this Chambers person.He seems to have problems with anger managament.
Life is too short to get steamed up and get a heart attack about something inconsequential as mediocre engraving, well not mediocre, that is how they scratched in 1885, just look at it as folk art. Turnip partridges looked fine to them, who are we to complain?

If that were guns from 1885, I guess they never saw the Spangler brothers or Glahn's work.
Too many flying turnips and stick figure dogs, they should have stuck with the scroll engraving, pretty hard to mess that up.

AmarilloMike,
You're correct...too bad these other guys wouldn't dare tell you before...perhaps I was mistaken as to the reasons why...maybe it's not greed that keeps the obvious from being talked about...maybe the readers at this forum simply don't want to be trashed by rabbit's smart mouth. Does he ever have anything constructive to say or is it all cyber bullying?
Many consider Joe Loy to be one of America's best engravers, I know that I do. Please note that rabbit and sheffelbean have reduced his work to "scratching", which is understandable since they are clearly far better engravers than Loy.

Below is an example of Flues engraving skills on his 1910 personal gun...maybe I'll be be better able to photograph it better in the daylight. I'm sure rabbit and ted, being the the great American master craftsmen that they are, will quickly poo-poo Flues work as well.



use Ctrl + to zoom Flues signature

To ted and rabbit, two of the great luminaries of this BBS system, Loy and Flues were just a couple of flying turnips who scratched guns... so before these guys begin to poo-poo Flues' engraving skills, I would like to mention that he also;

1) carved the action by hand without machinery/electricity
2) designed and hand made all the internals
3) knit the bbls, ribs, and lumps together
4) joined the action to the bbls
5) stocked and checkered
6) blued and finished it

If that isn't enough...he designed, PATENTED, handmade and installed a single selective trigger mechanism which has an additional adjustable length of pull feature.

also

Correction...I've not seen the Tom Mix' gun or Kornbrath's personal gun which both reside at the Cody museum, so I don't know if they are one thousand dollar grade or two thousand dollar grade (sidelocks)...I should have checked before I said "all" the two thousand dollar grades are still missing.

So much intrigue......

Where's Columbo when you need him. Heck maybe Jim Rockford could investigate.....

I don't make my living as an engraver. I don't have to. There are people who are better at it. That doesn't mean I can't comment on it. I pointed out that neither Loy nor Flues could hold a candle to Winston Churchill. They don't, and they can't.

Argue THAT point instead, Robert. Good luck with it.


Best,
Ted

I'm pretty sure this is Loy also.........







21

Thank you Robert!

AmarilloMike,
Thanks for not saying anything...let the readers interpret for themselves. I posted that info with trepidation because of the lack of cross reference (often associated with secret). Either way, truth is more important than being correct. So I would like to add some info that may or may not appear contradictory.
Loy's life had an unusual twist in that he had an unintended double identity (no pun intended). Back then, just as now, jack everyone assumed his legal name was Joseph. His name was Joe. This near meaningless bit of information has further obscured his life to many researchers.
None of the guns in the photos I posted belong to me except the Flues 1910 gun, but some were Ithaca Flues models which were not manufactured until Loy was squarely working for Remington for over a decade. Then how can this be?
I was shown the Loy touchmark by a gun engraver who explained that Loy continued as a sub contractor for Ithaca for decades. His conveyance stood to reason because only an outside contractor could alter what had become a "factory pattern" done by in-house salaried employees. Then, when you begin to look around at the examples, they vary far and wide, but all are variations of a J & L cypher. Not only had he figured out how to bury his mark, he altered and flared it so we wouldn't miss it.

The records I've seen indicate that he also moonlighted engraving sports medals as lat as 1916 even though he lived until 1952.

Robert, if I understand your position correctly, you have been angered by collectors who have specific information that aids the accurate identification of guns engraved by Loy who have refused to make that information public in order to be able to have a "leg up" in acquiring guns at less than the market might otherwise dictate (because of a general lack of understanding about who engraved what). They have also angered you by making it more difficult than it might otherwise of been for you to conduct your research and get the fruits of your labour out in the public domain.

If I am correct in understanding that, why do you seem to be perpetuating the secrecy? If there is a Loy touchmark, why not just get it out in the open?