Fantastic time at the Frazier

[pilkguns]

Friday morning I met Roger Bleile and Donna Bolton at the Frazier musem in Louisville on the banks of the Ohio river. Roger is of course the author of the 1980 book American Engravers, and devoted engraver himself. Donna is a jewelry engraver in Louisville, see some info about her here

http://finerjewelry.com/engraving.htm
and don’t miss this cool bracelet that she brought to show us.

Thanks to some connections Donna had, we were allowed to visit the vault area where some incoming pieces still being catalogued were out for our inspection. Here are some photos of what we saw there.

We had a great time walking around admiring and discussing the techniques of the engraving, gilding, etching, damascening and repousse on the various displays of armor, knives, swords and firearms.

I got Roger to sign my well worn copy of American Engravers as well.



We may do this again sometime later this year, hope you can come.

 

[richard hall]

thanks for the information and the wonderfull pictures, we all need to get out more and see what is going on in our country.

 

[Mike Cirelli]

I have to tell you Pilk you don't let any moss grow under your feet.
I never thought to tell you that you should have dropped off an Iron City beer that I carted down with me to Dr. Costa. He definitely would have wondered where the heck you got it from and probably would have got a kick out of that.

 

[pilkguns]

well you bring some next time and we'll go look him up.

 

[Mike Cirelli]

I truly wish I could come this year but my Son is graduating from HS this year at the same time.

 

[Roger Bleile]

The Frazier visit was great! What a pleasure meeting Scott, Rhonda, and Donna. I also got a sneak preview of a knife Scott is working on. You will all be very impressed once he posts the finished product. I highly recommend a visit to the Frazier to all here. About 80+ percent of the many guns displayed are engraved. Among others, we saw work by Nimschke, Young, the Ulrichs, Howard Dove, and Enoch Tue who we learned was the head engraver at Savage 1900 - 1916.

Roger

 

[david bain]

Sorry i missed you.I stopped with my daughter and grand daughter and took a tour of the museum friday morning.If you saw some guy walking around with an amercian long rifle t shirt on that was me.any way we also had a great time lookeing at the firearms there.

 

[Roger Bleile]

David,

Sorry we missed you! I think we were down in the basement viewing some special items until about noon.

Roger

 

[david bain]

dang dang dang I was up stairs watching the sword fighting. we left about 11 to take grand daughter to children museum.

 

[autumnwinds44]

Errol Fylnn or ala Johnnie Dep?

 

[david bain]

no laurel and hardy with swords more like it

 

[Peter E]

I read that knifemaker LLoyd Hale was exclusively contracted by Owsley Brown Frazier to make a collection of knives that went into the museum. I would be interested to hear about it and if anyone took pictures, it would be a pleasure to see them.

Peter

 

[Roger Bleile]

Peter,

There is a large collection of custom knives on display that Scott identified as being by Lloyd Hale. There are about 20-30 knives in the display case. Each knife is extremely ornate, many with mounted gem stones however there was not one knife that had any hand engraving. One huge bowie had the blade etched in the style of Shaw-Leibowitz. My reaction upon viewing the collection was: Over the top ostentatious and Hale apparently does not engrave and does not want to involve an engraver in his work. Of course I view nearly every objet d'art from an engraver's point of view not a collector's perspective. I don't remember if Scott took pictures of the collection but I did not.

Roger

 

[Peter E]

Roger,
Thanks for the reply. It had not occurred to me that none were engraved but had I thought about it, it is no surprise. I collect knives, and LLoyd Hale makes some incredible art knives. Mr. Frazier was so impressed with his work, that he paid him (handsomely i'm sure) to make knives exclusively for him and part of the agreement was he could ONLY make knives for him.

Reading about it in a book by David Darom was what piqued my interest about the collection.

Peter