HELP identify this engraver please!!!!

[Andrew Biggs]

One thing I would emphasize is the pleasure of ownership as well. Not everything is based on monetary value.

Many years ago I owned an old black powder Enfield Snider. It was a piece of junk. It sprayed bullets everywhere and if you could get a 3ft group you were doing well. But every now and then I took it to the range and played with it because it was a lot of fun with smoke, powder and flame everywhere. We would all take turns to see if we could actually hit anything and had fun doing it.

So even though it was worth nothing as a collectors item and it shot like crap................I still enjoyed it.


And so it is with engraving sometimes. If you have a gun and want it engraved, even though the gun isn't worth much.............it doesn't matter. Just enjoy having a good engraved gun.

Not all of us can afford to have a Rembrandt but we can all afford an original painting at least once in our lifetimes

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Roger Bleile]

Dog legs are also known as "elbows." If you go to the E page of my glossary you will see an example of a scroll with an "elbow." http://www.engravingglossary.com/Hand Engraving Glossary E.htm

The following may muddy the waters somewhat but I don't personally believe that the engraving on your gun necessarily reduces the value. The example that Steve gave about the $100. engraving job at the gun show is an example. You probably have realized by now that we on this site are really "ate up" about engraving. We all look at some of the world's best engraving regularly and become very discerning about what we see.

I like to keep in mind that most gun folks have no idea of what they are looking at when it comes to scrollwork. This is brought home to me at every gun show when I see guns with horribly botched, amature engraving on them with high asking prices. Now one never knows if these things sell but I'm sure some of them do. I also follow engraved guns on auction sites and am often amazed at the price that some guns bring while wearing poorly designed and/or executed engraving. That said, the serious, well informed (and read) collectors do know what they are loooking at. That is why every serious collector I have visited has an entire library covering their specialty.

All in all, it does seem much more important (value wise) as to what kind of gun the engraving is on. A Colt is always a Colt, and so it is with a Winchester or Smith & Wesson. A Uberti will only bring so much regardless what you do to it. One of my sample/display guns is a Uberti copy of an 1890 Remington. I got the gun for very little $ from a friend who won it at a SASS match. If I did the same work on a Colt the value of the gun would have increased considerably but it would have been easily sold and I wouldn't have the display gun. As it is the gun is probably worth the value of the engraving and the very low price I paid for it but keep in mind that I only paid for the engraving with my spare time. I have attached an image of the 1890 at the bottom of this post as an example.

I suppose that a good anology to all of this would be to use cars as an example. If two people decided to invest their time and money into a custom car and each spent $20,000. either customizing or restoring and one spent his $ on a 1955 Chevy Belair convertable and the other on a 1955 Nash Ambassador 4 door sedan, which person would get a better return for their investment? Now one can argue all day the merits of the Nash for quality and reliability as opposed to the Chevy but it is a simple fact that far more people have dreamed of owning a vintage custom Chevy than a Nash.

I am often asked "what does gun engraving cost." I want to reply "how high is the sky"? How much does it cost to paint a house? How much does it cost to buy a car? There are too many variables for any kind of answer without far more specifics. To narrow it down, a Colt single action army could be engraved for as little as $500. for some very light scrollwork to well over $20,000. for the kind of all out masterpieces that are pictured in my books.

If you would like to buy my latest book that has been recommended, you will see an add for it on the left side of the page that I have linked to from my glossary.

Lastly, I would like to complement you for sticking with this thread even though the replys you initially got were not what you were hoping to hear. All too often folks open a thread here asking about the value or provenance of some gun and if they learn that it is not what they wanted to hear they get ticked off and never even make one reply to acknowledge the time people spend answering their queiry. Most of us take the time to answer such enquirys to spread information about what we do and for all the hundreds of lurkers out there who would like to know more but for their own reasons never ask.

Regards,

CRB

 

[JJ Roberts]

777,Pre 64 firearms are my choise for engraving,S&W,Colt,Winchester,Remington,American made.Can't go wrong with these classic's American firearms.The clones are not worth engraving.J.J.

 

[bwp777]

Nice gun there mr Roger. I can see the diffference on the Uberti you show vs. my humble turd. Well if I can get my money back then that is all I can hope for. I gave $1200. Now let the REAL flaming begin

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Ask $3k for it and see what happens. Be bold!!

You can always lower your price by negiotiation............. but it's a lot harder to raise it. For every seller there is a buyer and you never know what the buyer is looking for.

I was at an antique arms auction and witnessed two guys bidding for an old beat up Colt that was valued at around $2k. It sold for $15k because these guys were determined to have it. Even the auctioneer shook the gun at one stage to see if there were any gold nuggets hidden down the barrel that we all missed.

There are no absolutes in any of this and it's not a mathematical science.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[bwp777]

Mr. JJ. I will just say that though I love my american made firearms, there are much better examples of these and other firearms NOT made here. I buy american when the american version is better. Colt is only better because of the name. The materials are no better than Uberti or many of the others. It is rumored that the castings Colt now uses come from..........................................you guessed it..........................Italy (Uberti). I don't know for sure and could really care less where they come from. I will gladly put the accuracy and dependability of my turd against any Colt or other copy.

Colt also made the original 1911 but I dare say there are MANY others not wearing that badge that put the poor colt to shame. If the only guns worth engraving are good old american classics then I have really gone off the deep end. My engraving and gun are crap. I get it. I accept it.

 

[Haraga.com]

Looks like there's a new Sheriff in town.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

You are confusing a few things here.

None of this is about which is the better firearm for shooting or even which is the better firearm full stop. It could be argued that depending on what you are shooting at then anything will do. That's not the point. If you want to tell the time then a $10 watch will cut it......................so why buy a Rolex??. Why do people buy Harley's when there are better motorbikes around?..........................That is the felid you are asking about.

Legend, myth, advertising and all the rest of it are part of the deal. When you are talking investment items then you are into a whole new ballgame. If you are talking pride of ownership then that is another animal altogether..................the trick is not to confuse the two of them

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Barry Lee Hands]

Ok, I will try to make an attribution.
This looks familiar and I think it is from one of the Gouse brothers, the younger one perhaps. I don't recall his first name.
His older brother is Mike, here is his website:
http://www.gousefreelancefirearmsengraving.com
They engrave a lot of guns for the cowboy action crowd, literally hundreds of them.
They display at a lot of shows, mainly in the west.
According to the price list on the site, single action engraving starts at $450.
I am not 100% sure on this attribution, but I am inclined to think it is correct.

 

[Dulltool]

Only Colt makes the Colt SAA...... all others are clones.

 

[Marrinan]

bwp777,
I have followed your thread with interest. Thank you for understanding the comments about the piece in the spirit it has been given. Some have been blunt and perhaps personally offensive. You will find some outstanding, perhaps the best in the world, examples of the engravers art on this site. Go through the Gallery here and look at the work presented. You will find some amazing work. You will also find the work of engravers early in their careers. You will find a pistol done by one of those who commented done early in his experience. It has some truly remarkable segments but you will also note that there are areas where some of the same issues mentioned are present.

I have personally produced many of the same errors commented on and hopefully learned from them. You will find pieces on sites like gun broker that are presented as done by "master" engravers for high dollars when all the problems discussed are present and more importantly continue to occur year after year-no improvement noted.

With the knowledge you have been offered here in the comments and study sources mentioned you will be able to identify good from bad. If you refer to magazines like the Double Gun Journal which present some of the fine old double guns engraved with what today would be called "bloody butchery". In evaluating engraving for investment purposes you have to keep a historical perspective in mind. Engraving evaluation is a difficult and subjective process. Gun values are also subjective and whimsical at the very least. There are pieces produced by manufactures that have values way beyond logic. Guns that were produced in high volume and should not command the prices they get and others of the same period which are far more scarce and were more valued by shooters of the time than the now "collector" pieces. With very low collector value. Hard to figure.

As for Colt, many if not most Colt collectors frown on non-factory engraving. They cringe at after market engraving or dismiss it entirely. Colt its-self recognizes this and uses Colt Master Certified Master Engravers like Mike Dubber for their custom high end custom work. They seem to require that the piece be shipped from Colt with letter of authenticity. I doubt that any engraving will ever command the price recently paid for a Walker Colt with very crude engraving.

One of the concerns with collecting will also be the fame of the engraver. There are well known engravers which can command large fees while others of similar skill don't command quit the same hourly rate.

The bottom line that I would like to convey is- if you like it and it has value to you. Enjoy-if you chose to collect, get educated in what your interested in, whether engraved guns or porcelain ducks. Invest in known engravers with name recognition on high end weapons. Gamble on new artists and acquire early quality work and hope for appreciation.

 

[Roger Bleile]

"You will find pieces on sites like gun broker that are presented as done by "master" engravers for high dollars when all the problems discussed are present and more importantly continue to occur year after year-no improvement noted."

Someone here once said in a discussion about the title "master engraver" that no matter what your engraving looks like or what you call yourself, the the day someone decides to sell a piece you engraved you will be called a master engraver by the seller.

My brother once said to me, while looking at the work of a long time engraver, "some people have 20 years of experience and others have one year of experience 20 times over!"

 

[bwp777]

Thanks for the link Barry. Some of the work does look familiar. I will give him a call later today.:clapping:

 

[Kevin Scott]

bwp777,
Even though the comments about your gun are valid, since they are coming from knowledgeable people, I don't think your gun is horrible. Enjoy it and learn from it. Do not think you are a fool for buying this gun. The people on this forum take gun engraving very seriously and are very knowledgeable, and have high standards. My guess is many people would be impressed with your gun.
Kevin Scott, a guy that has very little knowledge about guns and gun engraving.

 

[Jeffrey]

bwp777 I've been following this post and the replies are very interesting, what I want to know is if the scrolls and the other features were done without the doglegs and been more precise would the opinions have been the same? Is it the style that you dislike or the execution? I personally like what I think is that cowboy western style, I see how the scrolls are uneven and have humps and doglegs but the general puplic wouldn't see it untill pointed out. The artist on this web sight see it with ease but not everyone has this eye, most of the general public(99.9%) are more forgiving. Will this gun be a collectors item, no, but would a cowboy action shooter like it, probably. We are talking about people who like to emulate the old west and most would like it for the fun of it.

 

[bwp777]

This is a cheaper type of design probably. I think that the majority of people that will look at it would like it. I hope so. I'm going to try to sell it at a gun show this weekend.