there have been many discussions regarding the maker's marks on french guns - the sometimes grandiose descriptions of the "superior steel", "perfected chokes", and guaranteed this-and-that.
i am of the opinion that the "fronds" stamped on the barrel flats are purely an in-house item....i have never seen any reference that would suggest there are established standards to govern the usage of those stamps - and as such, i view them as maker's declaration of greater and lesser quality of their own products. the differing (but similar) stamps pictured in this thread, would seem to indicate they are not an official stamp - and i wonder if they should be considered to be a valid means of comparison between one maker and another? just about every maker marketed french gun seems to display some sort of emblem that connotes relative quality; these fronds, swallows, hares, the poincoins (?) on darnes (where the number of quality stampings have some correlation to the grade number of the gun - i don't recall exactly what, maybe ted will happen by and explain).
another thought that has crossed my mind, has to do with placement of the various stampings. i suspect that the only stamps applied by the government proof houses are on the tubes themselves - always at bdc on each tube slightly forward of the flats, sometimes accompanied by non-government markings, customarily directly connected to the barrel maker. i have come to wonder if the barrel flats are exclusively the playgrounds of the gun maker...i.e. of my 4 manu guns, i have 2 that fall within the period when mf did in-house proofing. thanks to fab500's posting a few years back, we know the arrow-thru-the-circle stamp is equivalent to the st.ettienne/paris stamp - but the mf marks are always (?) on the flats...not on the tubes. and, on the made for market guns - the usual placement of the retailer's name on the bottom metal - i don't recall seeing those adornments of the flats.
as usual with these guns, a discussion tends to leave us with more questions than answers.
best regards,
tom
