I wonder if Lisle himself engraved the Tiger. All the ones I have seen have been near identical. It was his trade mark although he never made guns. In Boothroyds book on Over/Unders he shows a Celtic engraved Lisle and I have found them from the crude to the elegant; whatever the customer wanted. I would suspect a possible Indian conection maybe with a family member serving there but I doubt if this particular gun ever left Derbyshire Joe. Dickson of Edinburgh had a lion as a trade mark but this came from a stuffed one that he had in his shop window. I have searched through a good many old photos of Derby but never yet found one showing Lisle's shop.
Looking at the Cabelas gun; if you enlarge the shot of the trigger guard there is the same old tiger crudely engraved and yet the rest of the gun has been quite well executed. Perhaps it will remain a mystery. I shall be going down to Derby library to do some research on another previously unknown (to me anyway) Derby Gunmaker trading as Sporting Gun and Cartridge Company, Derwent St., Derby so I will have look at the trade directories of that period and see if I can shed any light on this little mystery.
Rocketman don't worry you won't be able to disrespect this particular gun as it is of very low quality. Saying that even the better ones had the same old tiger peeping out of the bushes, that's what leads me to believe that it was Lisle's own handywork. None of the other local Derby Gunmakers had a trade mark of any kind. I just bought this as an example for my collection so that I one of his guns.
Greg, tidied up a bit it would look o.k. It came from a dealer who had taken on another retired dealer's old stock. He wanted rid. It was a case of please make me an offer. We valued it as between £30 and £50 with respect to the work that it required and setttled on 40. Most of the other stuff was poor quality wall hanger grade. There was a Belgian boxlock that with a bit of tlc might have looked alright and a Baikal side by side hammer gun in excellent condition, that would have been great for one of these cowboy action shoots in America, that I could have had for nothing but I would have no use for it. Lagopus.....
