Have you seen this mark?
 

I have a 1 1/2 frame VH which, I'm told, was restored some time ago by the Del Grego shop. There is a mark which I have tried to capture on the right barrel flat just to the right of the unstruck barrel weight numbers which is a circle with L D G inside. Is this a stamp that was used by Del Grego at some time in the past? I can recall back when a discount was being offered by Turnbull if you allowed them to mark a gun which they restored.

I have not heard of DelGrego stamping their guns like that. But it is possible.

This same question came up two or three years ago here on a different gun I believe but I don’t remember what the stamp looked like exactly, but it definitely was LDG.





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I don't claim to be an expert at much if anything, but it isn't hard to pick a Delgrego gun out of a rack of guns just by their (in)famous case colors.

...and their woodwork.





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Not meaning to hijack your thread Joe but you had me wondering if my DelGrego skeet gun had any markings. 230236 is a 28" 20ga VH with BT, PG, ,
checkered butt with obvious DelGrego case colors. Tight up against the lug on the left barrel flat are the code LJ3, the letters D then G with a space between them, then the code LH3. It is marked skeet/in, skeet/out. The mark which looks like the Maltese falcon is there also as is another mark which I know has been discussed but not identified. His work is obvious but it looks like he didn't sign mine. The Parker overload stamp is present on both flats.

Yes, Edgar, the case colors on this one were what made me believe that it was done by their shop. Not my cup of tea but the gun feels good in hand. That mark intrigued me so I thought maybe someone might recognize it.
Dean, if you were talking about the finish applied to the wood, I'm with you. This one looks like it has a very thick coating of finish which looks passable on the forend but shows numerous safe bumps on the stock from previous owners. Not very durable.
Thanks for looking, Daryl. Sounds like a very nicely configured piece! I guess I am going to have to make a call to Mr. DelGrego and ask if they may have done this at one time or another. I had been thinking that this may have been a well known fact, of which, I was unaware.
On another note, I just had a flock of turkeys running past my window to hit my Crazy 8s (chicken scratch) that I put out about an hour ago! Three gobblers with 6" beards and about 9 or so young hens.

Daryl, trying to decipher your codes. It looks like your gun may have been made in Sept. of 1938, by the D G marking. Then some service in Feb. of 1939 by the LG3, and then again in Feb. 1940 by the LH3 marking.
The marking you mentioned that looks like a Maltese falcon, could you have meant Maltese Cross? The cross is seen on later Remington barrel flats.
That sounds like a sweet gun. Do you have a letter on it?

230236 was manufactured in '28 or '29 and there may not be any information on it in the PGCA copies of the books that were available at the time that those records were copied at Remington. I had 230760 made in 1929 and there was no information available for a letter.

Joe D. - Yes, the finish, the stain, the checkering and the fluting at the nose of the comb.





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DOH! My bad on date of manufacture. I was just looking at the codes and didn’t think of using the serial number to determine the date. Lol.
Thanks Dean!

Yes David, I meant cross not falcon. Dean is correct that there are no records for the period/serial number range. I just wasn't sure what the D and G meant.

A gun in the 230,000 range would not have any Remington codes indicating date of manufacture.

Sounds to me like 230236 was rebarreled by Remington with barrels made in DG D = September G = 1938 and had two trips to Ilion for repairs LH3 L = February H = 1939 and LJ3 L = February J = 1940.

I've recorded the Maltese Cross markings on barrels with 1937 and 1938 date codes.

Pictures?

Are the proof stamps on the barrel flats PARKER BROS. or PARKER GUN WORKS?

The stamps on the flats are very small and tight against the lug Dave. I'll try to get pics tomorrow.

Mystery solved
 

I spoke with Mr. DelGrego this morning and he explained that this stamping was used by his Grandfather when he re-barreled a gun. He asked if the forend lug had a 1 or 2 on it (which it did not) so he said that the original barrels must have been blown up or otherwise damaged so they replaced them with a set from their inventory. So, there we have it......

That's a nice touch and bit of history Joe. Others may not like it, but I find a restorer's stamp in an unobtrusive place to be worthwhile, and valuable. I had an LC Trap Grade restored by Turnbull and he did the Dt stamp on the action flats for a 10% discount. I sold the gun some years later and felt the Dt stamp added provenance and value.

Most interesting - I bought a trashed out VH grade SN 129XXX with a perfect set of barrels (so marked) and had them fit to a very nice original GH Damascus gun receiver buttstock and forend SN 133XXX by Babe Del Grego sometime in the early 1990s. They were not marked with the "LDG" rebarreled stamp.

When I sold the gun I freely gave the restoration and the invoice history with copies of Del Grego's correspondence. The gun had good modern dimensions and beautiful wood for an early Grade 2 so it sold right away. Having dealt with Del Grego's since 1967, I have never seen the "LDG" stamp as depicted on any of the guns I observed on my many visits hanging out in their shopl

Dave;

The stamps say PARKER GUN WORKS. Here is the best photo I can produce.

Kevin, I probably did not recount what was told to me as precisely as I should have. I got a little distracted when Mr. DelGrego told me how many barrels his Grandfather bought from the factory. I believe the key to the use of the mark on a re-barrel job was if the barrel used was from their inventory.

That convinces me that my assessment was correct.

Right - under Remington ownership.




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