doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Restrained opulence

While fit and finish never goes out of style, I wonder about outrageous exhibition wood, checkering that doesn't seem to end and much too busy engraving.
Does this put you off?
Finding the right combo of wood, checkering and engraving is the thing - there's a fine line of balance here - if not, the gun suffers loss of style points.
Being subtle, is the ticket!

Decoration is like punctuation. There are reasons for it besides because you can. But this, is a particularly piquant question. Pilgrim liked a sturdy hoe; now he can't get enuf ro in his coco.

jack

Opinions being what they are, there is some wood that has too much figure and receivers with too much engraving. This tends to be the case with some Italian guns for the most part. Their guns can be overdone with decoration. I ordered a custom Beretta through Cole Gunsmithing, and I selected AA wood for the gun. The higher grades of wood were just too busy.

The one English pattern that I dislike is Churchill, it drives me nuts. While I have no problem with full coverage of scroll, for me, it needs to have some type of flowing pattern, not just scroll upon scroll.

Thorny, you strike a sensitive nerve, but, no two pairs of eyes view the same art without coming to different conclusions. The "Goddess of the hunt" type engraving, with naked nymphos chasing unicorns, or, whatever, with childs archery size bow and arrows, and sans playtex 24 hour support, usually makes my skin crawl. Ditto the mostly Italian porn that has been highlighted on several websights. Some of the Germanic stuff is simply too baroque for my taste, as well.
Might be just me, but, I find the look of a bare Remington 17 receiver more pleasing than the same rolled out engraved model 37 Ithaca receiver.
My favorite is well done French "rosace", with straight grained, but, nicely contrasting, striped English or French. I'm a sucker for Boss house style rose and scroll, as long as the name and patent letters aren't in 1/2 inch block letters on the sidelates.
I think it was Purdey the younger that opinied the wood was simply the furniture, and should be a bit restrained. Wise man.
Best,
Ted

From an artistic point of view, many guns carrying a high price tag are not good pieces of art. The eye should never stop moving and have a lot of motion. Certain things, particularly gold inlay, detroy the overall impact of a piece. Gold inlays often act as flashing neon signs, crying out for the eye to stop and examine them in more detail. From an artistic point of view, this is bad and ruins the total visual and emotional impact of the gun. Fine fold line borders usually are not as bad.

Some case color jobs are even worse than gold inlays. Some folks strive to make the most gaudy colors possible - over-the-top purples, heavy blues, "neon-loke" colors. That is OK if you are paying for it and want it that way, but from an artistic point of view, it is not good. It is too loud and distracting and breaks up the flow of the gun.

"Over-the-top" wood on a palin gun is just as bad. What is needed is a very balanced piece where each part compliments the other and does not stand out from the rest. Each piece needs to be in proportion to the other peices.

If you want to see guns that truly are good pieces of art, look at anything from The Big 4 made from, say, 1880-1910. These guns were fully engraved, had nice wood, and flowing lines that create constant eye movement. The wood was not overdone, the engraving was not overdone, the metal finish was not over done. They are very complete pieces of art that move you emotionally without having any one piece of the puzzle jump out at you and cry for attention.

For tasteless excess in carving up wood and steel on guns, no one outdoes the Germans!

I've never seen a piece of wood that was "over the top".....never.

I've seen beautiful stocks that were debased with oak leaf carvings, gold wire and mother of pearl inlays, endless ribbons and fleurs through checkering that hid the figure....but I've never seen wood too beautiful for any application. My taste runs to the most bodaciously figured wood imaginable on a funeral gun, and I don't find it objectionable on a Sterlingworth, which is nothing more than an FE that didn't make it to the engraver's bench.

If I didn't own guns my garden tools would sport fancy walnut handles.

So long as the work well executed by a master craftsman, then there really is no such thing as too much or too little or too good. Era, culture, and individual tastes differ. If someone were to offer me one of those firearms with "too much engraving" or wood so fine it was "distracting" for the same price as one that had no engraving and very plain furniture...I would not think twice. However, when a firearm is priced beyond my reach, I am never lacking for reasons why I don't care for it!

On the other hand, in terms of weapons (and yes firearms and even shotguns are weapons) there are competing and basic instincts that run deep in our veins--- form that follows function has beauty and often that means simple, straight forward design and "clean lines." However, competing with that is the need (almost pagan desire) of the owner to invest spiritual and personal qualities into his weapons so that they might better be an extension of his person and thus imbued with special powers above and beyond the unadorned and thereby more closely tied to the owner. In that respect, engraving and other ornamentation of these most personal items can be somewhat like a tattoo.

Americans due to our history can be still be conservative in our tastes and traditionally excess in all things was to be avoided.

Doug

Restrained opulence is displayed by the stamped goose in flight on the side panels of the frame of my Nitro Specials. Chops

Nobody going to mention SDH's negative space. Nothing is usually a great accent on something or vice versa. As for stamping my personal identity on a weapon, if I'd laid out 30K plus for a shootgun, I wouldn't have much "portable wealth" left over for damascening gold into the crevices, so I'm saved from eye-fixing aesthetic excess and guaranteed threadbare good taste so long as I don't get out the vibrator and do my SSN. I'm touched by that photo of Felix Funken and crew happily chipping away in a bunker under the "sheds" during WWII; elfin magic is what we want and Santa to bring it come hell and high water. I'm also touched by those nervous tappings of en bloc ogives on the sides of Garand stocks. A different sort of spur for the historical imagination and oddly, in this case at least, the godfather of Art.

jack