There were hundreds of "names" that would appear to be gunmakers. Yet, we know that many were gun sellers only and many others were trade workers only. That still leaves a lot of craftsmen involved in the trade, but not a lot of "made wholy by hand from scratch in my shop" or factories. Shops and factories were overseen by Masters. Masters knew each other and knew who did what grade of work. Craftsmen capable of true best work often served as out-workers where they could set their own pricing. Any master could have a best gun built with as much work in-house as his shop was capable of or was economical and the rest by known out-workers; if his in-house stocker took twice as long to do a best stock as a known out-worker who charged 1.5X the in-house labor rate, guess who got the job!
Scott obviously could build best guns. Do you agree that Scott would sell a best grade gun within the trade? Where did W. J. Jeffery, William Evans, and A&N, for example, get their best guns? They sure didn't build them in-house.
You will always pay for the name. The trick is to not let the name blur the original quality grade of the gun and to know how the name is valued.
