Not so typical GHE?

[Autumn Daze]

Dean, I believe it is.

[Tom Pollock]

Added a few pics of my original high condition ventilated rib Parker. If you look close you can see the pins. I believe this is common on all ventilated rib Parkers.

[edgarspencer]

Jared's Damascus barreled vent rib gun may have been hand engraved, either in the worded area and posts, or entirely (though I doubt that) but Tom's gun looks too uniform to have been hand engraved. Thinking like an engineer (or, more to the point, a retired engineer) It would seem very logical to me to drill the rib, silver solder the posts in, and then roll stamp it, before attaching it to the barrel.
Simmons ribs, either supplied attached by Winchester, or sold separately, were fully finished prior to attaching to the barrels. I have a new Simmons rib for a Model 42, unattached, but with posts. The pressure of the roll die is so great, it surely would have deformed the barrel, had it been rolled after attaching.

[Dean Romig]

I don't understand.... Tom's rib only shows the rib matting which was never hand engraved in its entirety along the whole rib. It's the logo or legend that may or may not have been hand engraved.

[edgarspencer]

Perhaps it was I who misunderstood your post. I think it's a hand engraved legend on the damascus barrel also. One thing that makes me think that is the presence of guide lines above and below the lettering, to guide the engraver.
What I thought you were suggesting was that because of the drilled holes for the pegs, the whole of the rib was hand engraved. As I said before, I believe the process would have had the pegs silver soldered in, and dressed down, then the matting was applied, I believe also by a roll die. The blank space is all part of the roll die that does the matting. The lettering was likely hand engraved due to not having a roll die for the lettering because of the flat rib (the roll die for a swamped rib would have a radius to it's cross section, and the lettering would have to be very deep in the center, for the top and bottom edges to also be impressed)and because the gun was so much later than previous damascus barreled guns, with, no doubt, swamped ribs.
I'd like to see the lettering on other flat ribs, steel barreled or otherwise. If there were enough of them, one would presume there was also a lettering die for flat ribs. What is the earliest serial numbered factory flat ribbed gun?

[Tom Pollock]

I have a soft spot for ventilated rib Parkers and have owned numerous ones over the years, all different shapes and sizes. I've added a few pics of the barrel flats on my vent rib G grade. It has the same engraving guidelines as Jared's gun. My gun is in the 226XXX serial range. I think Jared's gun is an important find in the Parker collectable community and looks 100% correct to me.

[edgarspencer]

Tom, it clearly looks like a hand engraved rib (lettering) to me also. This confirms my thinking that Parker didn't have a roll stamping die for flat ribs.

[David Noble]

I'm not sure whether Parker marked the vent ribs with roll dies or hand engraving, but the standard ribs, including flat ribs, were roll stamped for the maker markings and barrel steel. The matting was machine cut one line at a time with a special matting machine and indexed over the proper amount for the next line. The matting machine was designed with a cam plate that raised and lowered the single point cutter to create the blank window around the lettering.

[David Noble]

I reread my above post and realized the way I worded it made it sound absolute. Actually,the single cutter rib matting machine was eventially replaced. Does anyone know when that took place or whether the new machine was a rolling type machine?

[Bill Murphy]

I believe the single line matting machine was used to the end. Maybe someone could link the American Machinist article that I mentioned earlier. It explains the machine and the procedure and has pictures of the barrel making machines including the rib matting machine. You can get the article on books.google.com. American Machinist, Volume 39, pages in the mid 40s. Interesting reading. I mentioned it on the first page of the "Variations in Ribs" thread. Apparently, my reference to the article didn't result in anyone finding it. Maybe someone will find it with the new information I have provided.