I have seen a rib like this only once, but not on a Parker. A local collector dealer asked me to look at it and give them my impression since they had never seen one before. It was a medium grade English double (well known maker but I just can't remember). It was in .500 BPE, hammerless, late 1800's. The rib looked just like that. The reason for the question was that the entire surface of the barrels had the same finish. It ppeared to be a rolled knurling, such as you would do on a lathe with a knurling tool. It was very obviously knurling and not a cut pattern. The thing that made that amazing was that the pattern was applied lengthwise of the barrels and blended radially so that there was no appearance of bounary lines between the bands. It appeared to be a perfect knurling job of a tapered cylinder. To this day I have no idea how it could have been done.

The term chased used in the letter would now mean some sort of recutting, deepening or cleaning up operation. No idea as to the meaning in those days. That could be a definition which would help reveal the technique.

Du Bray
 

Capt. A. W. (Gaucho) Du Bray...

Trap3

Any idea how old he was in that photo?

Du Bray
 

Don`t know a lot about Du Bray, not sure... I`m thinking the photo is from the 1890`s

Illustration in May 2, 1896 Sporting Life and he appears slightly older

https://photos.smugmug.com/US-Makers...g%20Life-L.png

Garry I am pretty sure that photo is from a Sportsmens Review, specifically 01/02/1899. Gaucho was born in 1848 but not knowing when the pic was taken we will never know for sure how old he was then I suppose but I would think around 51 or a little less, certainly no older.

This pic was published in 1906, again not sure when it was taken. Looks like the Ole Boy could have been a rather intimidating Gent should he have chosen to be.

Maybe someone would post the picture of DuBray that is included in Ed Muderlak's book. That may be a later (white hair) shot of Gaucho. I own the original studio photo, but I don't know the date. Ed never gave me credit, but I was used to that from Ed.

Thanks, Randy!

Look as though he sure aged in 7 years...

RD

7 years elapsed between the 2 pictures appearing in SR. The elapsed time between the 2 pictures being taken is anyone's guess. Hopefully the Ole Boy didn't age that much in 7 years but....