"Whether Chevillard did anything at all to the gun, other than sell it, is questionable."
Well said...I also believe that's the way the French gun trade worked, but it would be hard to back to back my words if someone asked me to substantiate my views, especially when the ARQB title is present. If I had to wager, I would say DR played more of a role as arqb than did Chevillard.
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I'll start sniffing around for Verney Carron slider stuff to post. Should I leave out the Stopvis because of it being a single shot shotgun, or should I at least post a picture for all the readers who don't know what a Stopvis sliding breech shotgun is?
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I'm struggling to find the words that I would like to say, so I'll just blurt the concept out..I've had 9 Frenchies come and go over the years. If only I could get them back together for a few days to compare marks and lock ups with the ones I have now, I would have a clearer picture of how the French trade worked [as opposed to the cottage work that figures so heavily in the Liege trade]. Just imagine the lessons that could be learned if 50 or 75 could French boxlocks could be compared. Roughly sorted by lock up and proof house would yeild a great understanding. Further broken down into specific lock ups and barrel makers would further the understanding. The French guntrade is hardly the final frontier, in fact, I predict that it will be reverse engineered within the next ten years if it hasn't been already. There are at least two new books out on French doubles, one of which is on Darne or the Darne types. I suggested to a collector from Belgium, that he is (perhaps) the worlds foremost sporting gun catalog collector (over 2000 European catalogs), his response was, that there are several catalog collectors who are far more advanced than he, but that his collection is the most diverse as the other collectors have focused primarily on French makers. With at least two collectors competing for the French reference data, it won't be long 'til someone gets their stuff to market. I'm gonna save lock up/proof house/barrel maker/touch mark data, just to see what pans out...I have never owned a French ejector gun, can't say that I've seen more than 3 or 4, do you have and any explanation for the rarity of French ejectors, or am I just not seeing them?.
