Not so typical GHE?
 

Here's one I picked up with a few other collectible guns. I don't think there is Parker letter available. The vent rib is numbered underneath the rib and matches the gun. 32" Damascus barrels. Anyone have an idea how many were made like this?

More pictures...

i should have grab it, if its the same gun and i am sure its is. can't be more than 1 of these :crying: very nice scott

Nice gun!

I saw one at Puglisi's several years ago. If memory serves it was a DH 12.

Wonderful scarce gun. Looks like it was made on a non vent rib frame, maybe at the time of its original manufacture.

You need a letter on this one. The serialization book only has one 206xxx serial number in it.

The rib is numbered underneath just like a CHE vent rib gun and a GHE vent rib gun that I have access to. You have to tilt the guns just right with a light to see the numbers. As far as I know there is no Parker or Griffin & Howe letter available, but my eyes and experience tell me this gun was born with the vent rib. It does have a curved rib extension and top frame area. This radius looks to be less curved than a standard rib gun but not as flat as most vent rib guns I have seen. I have more pictures available. 32" barrels choked IM & IM ... A fairly late Damascus barreled vent rib GHE trap gun.

Yes, a vent rib Damascus gun is a nice and rare find. And it is always neat to see a vent rib gun without a btfe.

Outrageously few!!

That's a late serial number for damascus barrels isn't it? It's uncommon for sure, and I like it.

Note the hand engraved barrel logo. Could not run it through the roll stamp, as the pressure would crush the rib between the posts. That is one neat gun.

I believe ordinarily, the rib was roll stamped prior to going on the gun.

There is a great deal of information In George Madis' about Winchester roll stamps. They employed several engravers whose only job was engraving the roll dies. That had to have been a tedious job, since the letters, in reverse, were the high points and the balance was removed.

Look at stock number 1057 at www.pugsguns.com a DH 12 damascuss on a #2 frame with the vent rib. I'm sure this is the same gun I saw several years ago as the price was $9500 now reduced to $7450. Mfg in 1895. When was the vent rib first offered? I thank my pocketbook it's a 12 not a 16:)

Beautiful gun. The dealer's pictures of it did it no justice. I think I recall their description stating the gun as "loose" or off-face. Is/was it? Looks good in the pictures.

That would have been impossible on this vented rib as the rib was drilled for the posts and this required hand engraving as evidenced by the tops of two of the posts having been engraved with the rib logo.

That's why I said 'ordinarily' i.e. conventional rib.

The gun at Puglisi looks like a swamped rib.

According to TPS the vent rib was first offered on an AH gun in 1923, there was a prototype in 1922. If this is indeed the case wouldn't the rib on the Pugs gun have been installed post production as it was made in 1895? The gun mentioned here falls into the correct time table for the vent rib but why the posts?

Wasn't John Dunkle's Great-Grandfather's fabulous trap gun the very first vent rib gun made by Parker Bros.?

I believe TPS lists the serial number of the AH gun that had the rib. I didn't write it down however.

Dean, I believe it is.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Do we know how many vent rib guns were made and how many for each grade?? :corn: scott

Here are some pics from the American Machinist article of 1913 including text describing the procedure.
Here is the link. There is a good deal of info on the milling of the barrels and lugs also, just scroll up in the article a bit.
http://books.google.com/books?id=1rJ...atting&f=false

I have several times before posted photos of a 12ga CHE Bernard with Bernard ventilated rib. It is the only one I know of, but of course there could be more.

There are a number of damascus barreled guns with vent ribs. From what I have seen, the guns were originally made before vent ribs were available, then returned to Parker for addition of the rib when they began to be offered.

Doc Drew shows a rib milling machine above. The classic double with the most complex rib matting that I know of is the Lefever.

David, I would love to have a hard copy of that article but I can't get it off the site.

Dave, I couldn't get it off the site either. I used my cell phone to snap some pics off my laptop screen! I tried to find a vendor that had a copy but no success to date.

I believe the single line matting machine was used on vent rib guns with pins attached. I find it hard to believe that the pins were dressed and engraved after the installation of the rib. What is the opinion of other posters? Second question; why are some pins more visible than others? Is this a result of a repair job with the rib being separated from the pins? Every pin on Jared's gun is quite visible, although well aligned. Has this rib been removed from the pins at some time in the past? By the way, Jared's gun, the Puglisi gun, the gun pictured by Bruce Day, seem to be about all of the composite steel vent rib guns out there. There must be more. Where are they?

go easy on yourself Scott - No one just grabbed this gun. It was a war of bids! I was a casualty. Congrats to Jared!

Factory-installed prototype vent rib guns were seen way before 1922. I believe there was an article in Double Gun Journal years ago about a very unusual vent rib gun down in the 171XXX range that also had a "rippled" pistol grip trigger guard (grooved to fit the fingers). My BHE pigeon gun SN 183562 had a factory vent rib with BTFE as well as a SFE, built in the 1917-18 timeframe.

This gun was hard to put a value on. A few of us, PGCA members bid on the gun. I happened to be runnerup, and was glad to let it go at that price. If it would of had a trap stock, higher comb, I believe there would have been more interest.

Yes, that is John Dunkle's great-grandfather's fantastic AAHE Double Trap gun that I mentioned earlier in this thread. And I believe it was the very first vent-rib gun produced by Parker Bros.






.