"He"??? And is there provenance for the Shelhamer work??
Love both, btw! Especially the 03.
Sorry, I guess in my editing that little detail got left out. The "he" is my dad. When I was a kid I would tag along with him to all the small local shows. Back when they were worth going to.
Provenance, well the rifles are not marked, and we have no history on them before Dad acquired them. So no, none other than the quality and style of work. I've seen enough of his work that I am convinced that the are Shelhamers work, but no I can't prove it. Fortunatly, with most of this old stuff, who did it has less to do with the value than the quality and condition. Good work is good work, and the name on it does not really carry much added weight. If anything, I have noticed that Shelhamers work generally does not bring the money that some of the other makers work does. It could be that most of his work is rather simple, you do not generally find Shelhamer guns with a lot of fancy engraving or other bling. They are generally working guns, just executed very well.
I wish I had some better pictures of these 2 rifles to show more of the details, but some of the things that convince me that they are Shelhamer work are.
1. The checkering, nobody checkered quite like Shelhamer. Remember, these guys made there own checkering tools, so no 2 are exactly the same. The height of the diamond, and the length to width ratio are unique to each builder, and they frequently had a few patterns that they favored.
2. The sling swivels are found on nearly all Niedner guns are the same.
3. The grip cap. I have shelhamer guns from the mid 30's all the way up to one of his last in the mid 60's. They all have the same horn grip cap.
4. The little brass washer around the forend screw. Again, every shelhamer gun that I have seen has the same one. He must have bought a million of them when he started and was trying to use them all up. And I have only seen on other early custom rifle with the same one.
5. The Schnabel forend tip. Yes, others used one, but very few did them quite like Shelhamer did, and probably about 50% of his rifles have it.
I hope this answered the question. To me Shelhamers work is one of the easier to identify. He has a lot of unique identifiers, and he very early developed his own style and did not vary to much from that. This is particularly true after he left Niedner. His post war stuff is almost cookie cutter they are so similar to one another.
Thanks,
John
