doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com How to determine English gun grade

There is no answer to this I think.

I have guns that have full engraving in traditional rose and scroll that are clearly Best.
I have other guns that are perfectly executed fine border only. Personally I consider those also Best due to their perfect execution and fine form. I'm probably unusual here in that traditionally Best has a large element of Quantity added to it. Since the thread was with regards to English doubles I'm ignoring American/Western style engraving which has it's own icons but a very different style. Finally I'll say that there's another grade in my books, Very Best. Very Best I consider well executed engraving that is creative, beyond perfect execution of traditional forms whether it is photo realistic "Bulino" or perfect Rose and Scroll. Very few engravers show such creativity in my view; most stick to traditional forms. Prime examples would be the works of Malcolm Appleby and Rashid el Hadi. But I digress. Maybe ask on some of the engraving forums out there and you'll really get folks going I'm sure

Jeremy

I'll throw this out there.

I think the OP, Claycrusher, is looking for a way to determine grades of English guns comparable to the grading systems used by American makers of the past as well as other makers, a marked grading system either by model numbers or grade stampings. Examples would be Parker letter grades, Ithaca numerical grades and the model numbers used by Sauer, named grades by Lindner Dalys. Also, as mentioned some makers assigned different serial number groupings for different grades.


Generally speaking, other than a letter from the maker stating the grade of a particular gun, there is no way to define grades of older English guns. As you can see from the varied replies and disagreement above, it is highly subjective.

It's been said Purdey only made Best grades, does that mean they are all of equal quality? What is Best to the seller may only be Second or Third grade to a buyer.

Purdey certainly sold 'B' grade guns and have sold a few boxlocks I believe; whether they actually made them is a different question. I imagine the boxlocks were Birmingham sourced, but the sidelocks may have been built (at least partly) 'in house'.

The maker who I don't believe ever made a second grade was (and still is) Boss & Co. However they also supplied guns signed 'Robertson' - which were in effect their second grade guns.

I owned a Purdey B quality 16ga. Early hammerless sidelock nonejector. Nice enough gun, but it was not a best.

Yes, so it seems that best engraving is highly subjective so therefore cannot really be used as a gauge to measure best gun.
The old lipstick on a pig type scenario.

In my youth, for some reason, engraving held no appeal to me & the slab side of a 94 winny just with screws & pins was more a thing of beauty than the gaudy (to my eye) Purdey rose & scroll.
That is until I bought a gun for what the gun is & has been built to do & it happened to have the %100 coverage rose & scroll lipstick on it. Now I like it somewhat more because on this gun it deserved lipstick to further enhance the build quality.
Fit of metal to metal is real well done & all internal surfaces are polished & even places like the underbolt & its slideway in the watertable are near perfectly executed.
Dicky bird safety, file cut rib, Purdey hidden third bite, some of the best triggers I ever used on a double, select eject, side clips, 1 1/2 oz. proof, 3" chambers, fine line checkering on a nicely figured stock, all combine to make this a best gun that I own.

I have handled better, but at $50,ooo they must be too best for my means, so good enough has to be good for me.

Best shooter is a lowly $250.oo Wm Cashmore hammer gun. It fits me & finds birds like a good dog & is a no fuss reliable, bang every time old faithfull. Close to best for hunting.
Now if it had bulino engraving it would not shoot better. Or is that best ?
O.M

A Best gun is a fickle topic at best.

I was just looking at a Browning 20 ga. BSS sidelock. It has many of the accruements that are accounted as being in the Best category but not the name. Should the same gun have been built by Purdey, Boss, Woodward, etc. I expect it would find more favour along side the Best's.

I own a McNaughton Edinburgh that is considered one of the most elegant and sexy guns alive with its trigger plated skeleton stocked action. I don't find it that way, however. The checkering is English flat top at 18 lines per inch and doesn't match the engraving or styling of the gun. The forend is plain and snap on. Rather crude for a gun of stature. It does have exciting wood, fine damascus barrels, top lever cocking with indicators and is the best balanced handling gun I own.

I also own a Scott sidelock back action, with crystal indicators and top lever cocking. It was finished by Sumners of Liverpool. It screams best in every category of a gun of its time. Very fine damascus barrels, engraving that equals the best, splendid wood, Scott forend release, superb fit and finish and handles on par with the McNaughton. It cost me a mere pittance. Unfortunately bastardized in its restoration.

So when it is said here that a Best is a marketing ploy, in large part I am inclined to agree.

There is nothing wrong with lipstick. It often enhances even the most beautiful of women. We shouldn't forget the second half of the expression....."on a pig"

Canvasback,

Your comment about lipstick makes me think of nature vs nurture. Society trains us to believe in its values and norms. Andy Warhol's photo of a Campbell tomato soup can was considered one off the simplest yet strongest statements of its time. Says who? The New York jet set at the time. And society though its commercialism, marketing and media coverage told us it was true. And we believed it. The original photograph is sold in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It is not any different that we are nurtured into believing what a Best gun should be. And this forum, rightly or wrongly, plays a large part in creating and establishing our beliefs.

Hmm. I can appreciate that up to a point but I'm inclined to think that nevertheless there are inherent gradations between the quality of different guns and their function. I have a moderately large collection of guns collected from a region (the NE of the UK). Among them are what I'm sure most would acknowledge are really base guns - no engraving other than a name, box lock non-ejector with poor wood (grain... nevermind figure) to match pair fully engraved sidelock ejectors. Some have obviously mediocre fit of components. It is apparent to me merely looking at them side by side (no pun intended) that some are much better made than others. And it is not just "decoration" or "lipstick". Some of my guns are extremely plain... in the good old Yorkshire style, but are nevertheless, at least to me, very well made, with almost impossible to see seems between components. As to function, well that comes to fit in large part but that's another matter.

That Edinburgh of yours sounds very interesting.

Jeremy

Bartlett,

I acknowledge what you have said and it is true. Guns are made of all different finishes, engraving, fit/finish, etc. and they should be graded accordingly. My point is that sometimes what we think as a best finish is not over and above what many of the 'provincial' gunmakers achieved. Often they provided the guns in white for who we consider to have produced the 'best ' guns. It is not uncommon to see a 'provincial' gun that equals a 'best' gun in every way but is disregarded without the high grade name behind it. And should I complain? That is the sheep in wolf's clothes that can be purchased at a modest price.