Attached is a scan of the 1874 price list. As you can see, the lowest grade in both 10 and 12 gauges says it has Plain Steel with no engraving or checkering. The next highest grade has "English Twist" steel, no engraving or checkering. If the rib inscription says "Plain Steel" would this be an indication that it's the lowest grade? The second level says Englist Twist but I've never seen the rib inscription say this. I have seen "Twist Steel" on the rib inscription, is this "English Twist"???
Stock book #1 goes from 1500 to 4259. It's very hard to read, the printing is so faded that many parts are blank, especially the column for barrel steel. I've seen 0, iron, twist, laminated, and Damascus in the column when I can read it. Would 0 indicate Plain Twist, iron indicate decarbonized steel, twist indicate English twist, laminated and Damascus are a given. In Stock Book #2, you start to see the abbreviations PT, T0, T1, T, and PS. Many of these blocks where the barrel steel is written in is completely blank but who ever analyzed the original records wrote in red ink what type of steel was used. They must have been able to read the original records but when they were copied, it didn't pick up the faded writing so they wrote in red ink on the copy we have.
As you can see, doing research letters on these real early guns is a challenge that I don't look forward too.
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