doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com An interesting rifle

I just hope this thread doesn't end here.

I agree probably made for an educated man, but a lettered man of business rather than a natural scientist. The engraving is clearly allegorical: the German Lion and British Bulldog fight over the downed carcass of the Spanish empire. Meanwhile the clever American Fox waits for the two to fight and become distracted, allowing him his rightful ascendancy to the Mercantilist future. Dollars to doughnuts it letters to a blue-blooded American aristocratic family - Astor or Carnegie, maybe duPont.

DAMN!!!!!!!! YOU ARE GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How the heck do you do that?

Brent

I have found this picture in several places on the net without a reference to the book they came from.

If one were to use use these words in Google, and yes you can cut and paste all the words. If you have some time on your hands you should be able to find the source, I'm out of time and need to get back to my work.


"Saber tooth tigers lived in Europe and North America. They were fast runners for short distances and probably ambushed their prey in packs. The Hoplophoneus species lived 20 million years ago. The Smilodon species lived during the Pleistocene from 1.6 million years ago to 10,000 years ago when it became extinct."

Well, I don't have much time right now but in a few minutes, I was able to find that the level of plagiarism of those few words is astonishing in the extreme.

I'll have to look some more later, but it will take a while to sort through all the forgers.

Brent

They removed an awful lot of metal to reveal so little scroll work.

It may have been done by acid etching the layout first. That removes the bulk of the metal w/o so much hammer & chisel work.

As only the flat sides of the frame are done, that also makes me think acid etching was used.
It's easy to do on the flat surfaces,,not so easy to do this deeply especially,,on the curved surfaces.

The process can be done right on the factory case color hardened surface. It will bite and cut unevenly at first as it gets through the thin hard skin of the case. But from there, the soft metal core offers little resistance. In fact it etches rather uniformly. A 'stop varnish' is used in areas where you don't want etching to occur like the scroll. Soft clay was used often to build a dam around an area to contain the acid.


When the etching is complete, sharpening up the edges of the scroll w/ conventional
gravers is done. The edges start to get undercut in the acid etch process. They get a bit ragged the deeper you try and remove the background.

Some LC Smiths look like they used acid etch to some extent on their game scenes to remove or evenly matte the background.

It looks like the background was taken down deep straight accross the panel except for the scroll patches. Then simple foliage and rock formation lines added with etching too.
Some stippling in the scroll background,,a few graver cuts to add definition to the scroll and scene.
Placing the inlays in relief is the final step.

If originally done through the factory CCH finish and left as is,,the etching is a dull gray, sometimes almost charcoal gray color. It's easy to darken any graver cut lines to match.
It would blend nicely with an already worn CCH finish. Perhaps needing a little help in the way of ageing. If done on a nice CCH finish it would take on the age all by itself as the original finish around it faded and wore with use.

Just my thoughts and speculation of course..

I don't know much about engraving but it seems that the artist's style should be fairly distinctive so perhaps he can be found?

What is the white metal would you guess? Platinum?

This is the third rifle that I have seen with Pleistocene scenes. And I like it a lot. I have Pleistocene cave paintings engraved on my highwall because - well because I like them more than realistic scenes, but this gun has something that definitely reaches me.

I found a possible book source for the phrasing from Michael's discovery but my web browser tells me that it is likely infected with a virus of some sort. My own university library does not appear to have the book "Extinct Species Of The World". Maybe someone else has a possible source.

Those words seem to have been plagarized hundreds of times w/o citing the author though. However, I really want to know about the rifle (and its maker and original owner), so I posted a note on the Marlinowners.com collectors' forum. Probably a long shot but I'm not so resourceful as Michael.

It's that sort of logic that got you chased out of Juarez.

This is quite obviously the handiwork of the artiste Robert Bruce Horsfall, the illustration in question appearing in an issue of National Geographic in 1916

See lower left corner of this page http://www.search4dinosaurs.com/prehistoric.html

May well be from February 1916, Vol. 29, No. 2

HOW OLD IS MAN, by Theodore Roosevelt, with 15 Illustrations (Summary: Theodore Roosevelt examines man�s prehistory, noting that most of what is known has been obtained during the last two generations. Related Subjects: Anthropology, physical; Man, prehistoric.)

If we believe that the rifle was engraved around when it was made (1896) then the drawing and book should be around this date. Not my area but will be something like E. Ray Lankester. 1905. Extinct Animals. How many books can there been on extinct animals?

The drawing is signed but the several ones I have looked at I cannot make out the name.