Gough

[Bruce Day]

Hidden under forward end of trigger guard bow.

[George M. Purtill]

Thanks Bruce.

[Mills Morrison]

That is really cool

[Gerald McPherson]

That proves it!!

[Dave Noreen]

Diana Grade Ansley H. Fox paper weight?

[Dean Romig]

my bet is on Dave's suggestion!

The topic of a DGJ pictorial article a couple of years ago?



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[MARK KIRCHER]

Elder

[Dean Romig]

Incredibly rare to see his signature in such an obvious place.
I wonder what Charles A. King had to say about that...

Obviously Gough won the debate.





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[Rich Anderson]

Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission:whistle: It would be kinda hard to unsign it.

[Brian Dudley]

What is the gun that has the subject signature? Make and grade?

[Dean Romig]

We suspect it is likely to be the rarest in existence, truly one of a kind, A. H. Fox Diana Grade mock-up made as an example of what the best of the best in the Fox gun works could produce as Fox's answer to the Parker Bros. Invincible.

If this picture is of the prototype we think it is, the barrels stop at about 4" in length and it has no forend or buttstock... but its beauty transcends what a buttstock or forend could possibly lend to the concept. There are stunning pictures of it in the DGJ I referenced earlier in this thread.

Those of us who have held it in hand will never again wonder to what breadth and depth the gunmaker's art can aspire.





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[Dave Noreen]

The Double Gun Journal, Volume Twenty-Three, Issue 1, pages 100 to 111.

[Brian Dudley]

I was going to post asking which issue. Thank you Dave, i will see if i have it on hand here.

[Mike Franzen]

Can you post a pic of the Fox Diana gun?

[Dave Noreen]

Here are some pics of Mr. Gough's engraving exercise --

63335

63336

63337

63338

[Dean Romig]

Thanks Dave, is that the one that was featured in DGJ along with the mock-up with 4" barrels?





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[Dave Noreen]

Yes. Those pictures were sent to me probably a decade or so before the Double Gun Journal article. Back when we were first discussing how to approach the BATF for an exemption for this "sawed off shotgun".

[Dean Romig]

I well remember holding the "sawed off" in my hands feeling like I held the 'holy grail' of Foxdom as I admired it completely spellbound.

I may be wrong but isn't it a step above the Diana grade?





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[Brian Dudley]

The Diana was never a catalogued offering. That example was the prototype for it. So i suppose it cannot be a step above what is already is.

[Dean Romig]

It was explained to me that it was made as an example to show the Fox 'officers' at the time, what the gunshop and Gough could create as the answer to Parker Bros.' Invincible.





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[Dave Noreen]

The serial number, 19522, would place it long before the Invincible. While there is no production card for 19522, those on either side of it shipped in
May 1912. It may have been a second or something pulled from inventory and made up for the Panama - Pacific International Exposition in 1915 --

63355

DIANA is somewhat similar to Billy Gough's personal trap gun, 20175, which cards as an A-Grade for W.H. Gough in December 1912.

63353

63354

Interesting that DIANA has the rebates and fancy-back, which first show up on some of the SPECIALs Gough did for the Panama - Pacific International Exposition, see Tom Kidd's article in The Double Gun Journal, Volume Eleven, Issue 2.

[Bill Murphy]

Dave, a decade of waiting is a bit of overkill for waiting for a short barrel exemption from ATF. They are actually pretty liberal about such things.

[Dave Noreen]

All I did was write a letter supporting the request, probably sometime in the 1990s as I recall. If there was a decade of waiting it was the owner, at the time, to decide to make the request.

[Kevin McCormack]

Funny; 20175 doesn't look anything like either of the 2 very nice A grades I saw at Hausmann's over the weekend!!

[Tom Wyraz]

Researcher,

Do you recall hearing the story (told to me by the previous owner of the sample) that it was found wrapped in wax/oil paper in an old desk drawer in the Savage Arms works in Utica, NY?? He told me that personally.
Tom

[Dean Romig]

So then the current owner had the display box made for it?





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