I collect and research guns made in Kentucky. This past week-end I purchased a significant rifle at auction with very little competition at a very reasonable price... in large part due to the auctioneer listing the gun by the name on the lock plate, "Baker," rather than the barrel. He included the barrel name down in the description, but since it was in script he misread it significantly.
The gun was a ca. 1840-1845 half-stocked Bardstown rifle signed by Jacob Rizer, arguably Kentucky's finest gunmaker... and my favorite Kentucky gunmaker for many years. While rather plain, it had spectacular curly maple in the stock and a very long barrel, 46-1/2", for a percussion rifle, giving it a slim "southern" appearance. A signed Jacob Rizer rifle appears at auction about once every 10 years from my experience, so each new one is a "gotta have" rifle. It's also worth mentioning the auction house interpreted the very clean barrel signature as "J. Riner" which helped hide the gun from interested parties. When you chase a specific area's guns for years, you develop "inside knowledge" on a lot of small details, such as when Rizer went from flintlock rifles to percussion rifles, he changed his signature slightly, cutting off the tail on the "z" and instead began using a small print-style "z" in his last name [no tail dropping down], despite the rest of the name being in script... so it looks somewhat like an "n." The moral of this story is, despite all of our complaints about auction houses often using the name on a lock to identify a rifle, once in a while it's a really good thing!
Shelby Gallien
