doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Darne question

Would be cool if your initials are PR.

Those woven precious metal inlays seemed to be a feature that disappeared around 1920.
The same can be said of sculpted detonation (breech balls) another stylistic feature that either fell out of fashion, or, cost too much money when everything was said and done. Earlier still, those trigger guards with the extensive metalwork on the front, the French name of which escapes me at the moment, went away also. I would think the things just got in the way, but, don’t know if tastes changed or the economy simply wouldn’t brook artwork on a consumer shotgun.

Photo of the aforementioned detonation. I like it:



Best,
Ted

Just wanted to resurrect this thread to mention a reprinted catalog I just bought. Cornell offers a copy of the Darne 1909 catalog and I got a copy when oredering some other items. It came and I realized it was connected to the gun discussed in this thread from August. As luck would have it, from the catalog I deduce that 1909 was the year they brought out a new model of the R series. They offer for sale the Model C 1881, the Model D 1909, the Model A 1907, the Model R 1894, the Model R 1909 and the Model P 1898. Certainly an interim year. I read enough French to just barely get the gist and often am wrong, but it appears that in those years, they Model R 1894 was available in grades R11 to 14 and the Model R 1909 in grades 15, 16 and Perfection. The Model P 1898 was offered in grades 17 and 18, although the Model P is referred to as the Perfection.

I find it odd that the catalog shows no listing at all for an R10. I thought that maybe the base gun was an R10 and the others upgrades, but the main sections list a price range for each Model, and they match exactly the tariff listed for each specific grade level, leaving no room for a base model in the range. I have to take this to mean there was no R10 grade during this period. The 2,3,4,7 and 8 are for the older models. Found that interesting in light of the fact that most people assume an unmarked older gun is automatically an R10. I am not certain that is always the case. A base gun is still a base gun, but not necessarily the specific model presumed.

There is also a chart in the introduction which shows powder and shot loads for proof levels 1 through 10 and the upper ones look pretty severe. They present a sample proof record of a set of 12 gauge barrels from 1908. The barrels were 66 cm., the barrelsweighed 1450 gm, and the gun was assembled and finnished. The gun passed 7 successive proofs, the first was a light charge. The 2nd through 7th were proof levels Premiere thru Sixieme. A normal proof was20 gr of powder and 120 gr of shot. Level 6 was 30 gr of powder and 200 gr of shot. Even the desireable triple proof was 24gr of powder and 150 gr of shot. Pretty impressive. Reminds me of someof Sherman Bell's work.

Ted, one final question, I had not noticed your comment above in the previous post, but what would be the possible significance of a PR crest? That is actually what I had assumed it represented.

AGS, if you'd like to post photographs of the catalog, I'll read through it over the holidays and post the important parts. FAB500 will know this stuff but you can never tell what's in it and you can't really use a photograph in Google translate. Gene

It would more than likely be someone’s initials. The higher the grade of French gun, the more likely you are to see those intertwined initials, usually in gold. I’ve seen them with three initials, as well. Anyone, who had anything to do with this gun, when it was new, is no longer alive to tell us anything about it.
It would be nice if the guns could talk. But, they can’t.

Do enjoy your Darne.

Best,
Ted

Three initials would be a monogram

I will try to post it when I get a chnce. I can decipher a little French (thanks public school) and am pretty sure about the things I posted. The thing I gathered from the product section was that it seems obvious that while people talk about grade levels, it doesn't seem that during this period of their history Darne made a lot of grades in each Model. They offered multiple Models with generally 2-3 grade levels within each Model. The grades increased sequentially through all the Models, ordered by percieved quality of Model. The grades were not complete, with gaps between Models.

Keep in mind that they sold several lines of completely different and unique actions at the time the 1909 catalog was current. As the years went by, the model A and model C dropped out of production. Eventually, it was just sliding breech guns, the model R, P and V.

The grades fill in at around the time of the 1936 catalog. The Halifax model appeared around the turn of the century, and some years, one, two or three models of the brazed barrel Halifax were cataloged.

Sometime after the war, Darne began cataloging and selling an O/U, known as the SB. They were cataloged and grade marked separately than the sliding breech guns. I imported and sold exactly one of them, a straight stocked 12 with double triggers. Mechanically, it seemed to be similar to a Winchester 101. I’m not positive, but, that may have been the only SB ever imported to the US. Wes Gilpin told me he never had anyone interested in one. The gent that ordered the SB fell off a ladder before the gun came, and never was able to use the gun due to his injuries. Last I spoke to him, his father used the gun, but, he is all of 80 years old. It was a bit of a sad story.

Best,
Ted