Raimey,
I think the sportsman of the day only cared about style/price/name on the gun. I doubt many understood the trade marks any better than sportsman do today.
I believe there was a huge international market in place. Makers sourced tubes, actions, guns from where it made sense and profit at the moment. A 1910 Beretta catalog, in Italian, I own is loaded with WC Scott guns. By the mid 1920's they did not have any WC Scott guns in their catalog. In the early 1930's they had barrels from Belgium and England. By 1939 they only had barrels by Krupp.
The trouble with trade marks is that they were only registered in a specific country for a specific time frame. Everything has to match for them to make sense. I could have suggested that HS was Henri Sauveur & Sons, but time frame did not fit. This is especially true with just initials.
Pete
