For those with Mr. Cate's Sauer longarm book see page 246 for serial #681, with 900 toward the forend lug on the underside of the right tube, which has the same marks.

Ken:

I really enjoy the exchange of ideas and it makes me research more diligently.

Well, let me amend my comment surrounding the quad caveman stamp. I've seen a pair, a threesum, and at max 4 and there is a reason. At the Vintagers(2009) I asked Mr. Apel(GGCA) why there were multiple Schilling or "K" in a square(Krupp stamps) on tubes and he indicated that it was just 1 stamp with 2 images. So the 4 caveman would be a single stamp of 4 caveman images. Also I revisited the keyboard lashing I received from Mr. Cate in asking about the multi-caveman stamp being quality and he adamantly(?) stated that it wasn't a quality mark but noted the approval of the craftsmen at the Sauer plant and noted completion of the weapon at the Sauer plant. In a general sense, if that doesn't define quality, then I'm at a loss as to what does. I've pulled the tubes on an early Sauer-Daly hammer drilling and it does have the quad caveman stamp as well as 2 small crowns on the forend lug and the large and small crowns on the watertable. So the quad caveman isn't a precursor to the large and small crowns. But it has, just has to have something to do with quality/quality control as Manhattan Arms examples are the only other examples I have seen until the 2009 Vintagers, where I smoked over a Heinrich Scherping built by Sauer with utilizing the Facil Princeps(thanks to the observant eye of Steven Meyer) and that patent was stamped on the sides of the tubes similar to the Daly in question. The Heinrich Scherping also had the quad caveman stamp. There's no doubt in my mind that Sauer made the Heinrich Scherping and with the Scherping and Manhattan examples, all evidence is pointing to the fact that the probability is very high that Sauer completed some Lindner stamped Daly examples. If a Linder Daly can be located with the large and small Sauer crowns, then it had to be completed at the Sauer plant due to the fact that extra effort and expense was exhausted in patterning for what I think was the small crown, but the difference between the 2 crowns is a demon into itself. All in all, I'm really looking at the bigger picture of the possible sourcing of the makers in Suhl.

The "Sauer-Daly"'s tubes each have a bore parallel single caveman stamp, an intertwined "SS" perpendicular to the bore direction and a quad caveman stamp perpendicular to the bore on the underside of the left tube. These are all in addition to the required proofmarks. I'll search from my Manhattan and if anyone has a Manhattan example, I'd like to ask that you post pics of the area on the tubes just ahead of the flats.

What might the serial number have been?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse