I sent the link to this thread to one of the American gunsmith's you so easily dismiss.
I'm paraphrasing but here are his thoughts.
"Americans made checkering an art form. Not the British, nor Italians, nor Austrians, nobody but the lowly Americans.
Now the world aspires.
About the only reason that W&S did flat top checkering was that it cost them less to meet their price point."
FWIW: He is known well for his stock design and I trust his opinion without question. He has forgotten more about the making of classic rifles and shotguns than most will ever know.
Perfect! Exactly! That rhetoric is universal with them. That perfectly ignorant and militant mindset is why it's so hard to get acceptable work out of them on a BRITISH gun. Moreover, work from those famous American names is often more expensive than shipping the gun back to England and having it done properly.
Look, I'm not saying that we don't have some talented American smiths, we do. I'm saying that there are significant differences between American & British designs and methods. British stockmakers like David T. (Purdey) and Paul Hodgins (Holland) did long apprenticeships to learn to make the British design using their traditional methods. I've seen many "restorations" and restocks of British guns that came through ACGG members. Execution is usually superb...and wrong. The work is expensive, out of place, and requires more money to salvage. Some Americans have the talent (and lack the militancy) to study what they remove from a British gun and simply duplicate it - and do a good job. Very, very few. Most are like your fellow - well trained, maybe some talent to go with it; plenty of experience with American guns, but no training on British guns, possessing open contempt for and ignorance of them as exposed by his statements; and likely unable to rein in his prejudice long enough to do a correct job on a gun that isn't American. Certainly not somebody that gets to touch one of mine.
It's real simple. If you're wanting to commission a concours, frame-off restoration of a '59 Silver Cloud, you wouldn't choose an expert on vintage Cadillacs, or vice-versa. Again, British and American gunmaking designs and methods are quite different. American smiths don't have the training for the British guns (that's not an insult, it's just an observation of fact and common sense) and vice-versa. Sure, American smiths CAN learn it, our people have as much talent as anybody, but they won't with the attitude that your guy, and many more American smiths that I've encountered, obviously have.
Yes, we have some great American smiths - for American guns. In long guns, I'm partial to British, and I prefer them to be un - "Americaned".
As for this statement....
I'm paraphrasing but here are his thoughts.
"Americans made checkering an art form. Not the British, nor Italians, nor Austrians, nobody but the lowly Americans.
Now the world aspires.
The howler of the year. That guy has steer horns on the hood of his beat up Cadillac and thinks Rosie O'Donnell is the sexiest woman alive. Many things can be excused, but poor taste is just sad. He probably thinks that the subject of this string was perfectly done.
