India ink was routinely rubbed into the engraving, especially on the higher grades, in order to produce engraving "pulls", or reverse images, for recording the work or to provide prospective customers the opportunity to see exactly how much detail could be obtained by the engraver. One of the times I sat with Bob Runge prior to my DGJ article on him, he showed me a 3-ring binder full of plastic-folder pages of engraving pulls from guns he had done. Most impressive, I can assure you.
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