I find this topic fascinating, both at the level of the stylized game birds and the engraving process itself. I have a GH Damascus 20 from the early 1920s on which you can see the ghost of the original transferred drawing and how far off the engraver was in following it. The templates were, I assume, done by an engraver of higher rank, but following the transferred outlines onto the gun itself was done by much less skilled engravers on the lower grades. Seeing something of the process left on the gun is a reminder of the human element that is a part of all of these wonderful guns.
If I can get a close-up picture of my GH, I'll post it. The engraver made the bird go from a plump, well fed bird, to a starving, thin one.
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“Every day I wonder how many things I am dead wrong about.”
― Jim Harrison
"'I promise you,' he said, 'on my word of honor, I won't die on the opening of the bird season.'" -- Robert Ruark (from The Old Man and the Boy)
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