It was very common practice for dealers to have their guns made by someone in one of the gun making areas and either add their own name or have the maker do it. Also it was common for these guns to be "made for the trade", in more or less standard configuration, sold to a dealer, then a user; and never have any name added. This is the source of incorrectly named "Guild Guns". Larger makers often had enough "in house" workers to assemble the whole gun( but often with outside sourced specialty items, a good example being barrel blanks). Others would use some outside sources to do certain items of work, such as putting the barrel bundles together, engraving, making the stock, fitting the barrel bundles to the action, or regulating the barrels. Sometimes they sent the work to the workman, and sometimes they had the workman come to the shop. Often these workmen worked during the day in a larger factory and at night or weekend on these other jobs. The marks and initials that are not proof marks were added by these workers to ID work for payment and fix responsibility for quality of the work. This system was also used by the large makers, with their "in house" workers. I believe the gun was made in or about 1911, but I can be wrong. After about 1923, Suhl started dating their proofs, but Zella-Mehlis dated theirs much earlier. If yours had been dated, we would be sure.
Mike
Last edited by Der Ami; 11/03/17 04:18 PM.
