doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Help identify double shotgun!!

Thanks TW for your comment. Comparatively -and in my humble opinion -this gun's engraving quality is on the same level as many other English and Continental guns that I fondled - in some areas the scroll is indeed larger and more open but even within that that are sections of well executed minute detail...; there seems to be a general concensus that this was clearly manufactured prior to WWII but I would venture further and propose that it is more toward earlier twentieth century...any thoughts on this?
I looked around and found this classic William Evans and the similarities are obvious - observe how the splinter fore-end has the same characteristics aesthetically and mechanically except that it is an ejector and my gun is an extractor. The two top photos are the W. Evans.

Raimey,
Think you are right with W&C. But not for Romanis, but for
Denmark. The Crown with cross is danish before 1933.

Regards,
Gunwolf

M V T. ? is the makers sign - V for Vapens, means arms.

Gunwolf

Interesting take but from what I remember Denmark inspection marks were 4 lobed where the one in question has 3 lobes. It is possible that STIL is Germanic in nature, but how does it play into the puzzle. I wonder if it is possible to check with W&S and see where #5176 went?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

According to this web page:
http://doublegunshop.com/dgsnos5.htm

It would place the year of manufacture for a W&C Scott between 1874 / 1875...obviously that's not the case...

"M V T. ? is the makers sign - V for Vapens, means arms"...

So...Gunwolf, Vapens means arms in German and stil means style in German - so there could be a German connection here, on this shotgun - a sort of English / Prussian shotgun or...
like it has been suggested before simply a Japanese manufacturer copying an English model and coming up with a variety of European look alike marks?
By the way I looked at several Webbley & Scott shotguns and even though there are similarities - it was certainly not a revelation... I found more of a connection with the William Evans like the photos posted above. If it was a W. Evans it would have been manufactured 1901 / 1902...

It's common knowledge that at that time, Wm Evans did not manufacture his guns, but had them made for him in Birmingham. If I'm not mistaken, most if not all of guns bearing his name were made by ... Webley&Scott.

Now I don't believe I'm the only one here who studied Historical Comparative Linguistics back at college; I wasn't any good at it, so can't be absolutely certain. But I don't think, with 'steel' having either a long [i:], as in the English language, or a long [a:], as in German 'stahl', there's no way an Indo-European language could have a short [i] in it, and the spelling 'stil' suggests a short [i]. OK, so Hungairan is not an Indo-European language, but afaicr, Hungarian for steel is a borrowed German 'stahl', spelt without h. In a similar manner, I don't expect any language to have the word 'full' spelt in the way it is on the watertable here. The bottom line is, the 'stil' and 'ful' inscriptions on the gun, I think, are an attempt to fake 'European proof marks', supporting the Japanese origin theory.

For the moment, I don't see the Japanese connection but that does not mean too much at that point. So you are saying the Japanese were poor spellers? If you hold with Denmark, FUL could be a truncation from FULD. Very odd that the sporting weapon wears STIL in 4 places. Indeed more pondering is warranted. I would say we are thinking out loud at this point?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Thanks everyone for you feedback!!!
1.The mark "choke" that is certainly English.
2.The 12 c inside the Diamond is also an old English stamp - however in the way they are stamped is not typical of what I have typically seen in any English shotguns.
3.The stamp "stil" -repeated four times- certainly means style in German (or is it simply bad spelling - four times -.
4.The stamp "ful" is certainly a mystery...(or is it also bad spelling).
5. The crown over the letters that appear to be T V M - and not necessarily in that order - is a very clear mark and I don't think it is an attempt to copy or imitate anything or any European stamp that I have ever seen - I do believe it is a legitimate stamp...
6. The long "control number" which seems to have been stamped much more recently than the other marks - Japanese origin? Or something else?

Well, legimate proof marks don't contain misspelt words.

Again, I haven't seen much, but on every gun I've seen, when a marking on a gun says 'steel', it also specifies which steel. Krupp steel, best quality steel, Sir Whitworth's Fluid Compressed Steel... Laminated Steel, Damascus Steel - yes, those were counted as steel, so it hardly means 'not damascus'.

Yes, I am thinking out loud