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?
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