That's a really neat rifle. I'm glad to see this one here. I don't think Philly makers like Deringer (with one r) get their due. Henry Deringer's guns were a big part of the western expansion history during the period from about 1809 through the 1840's. These guns were pretty much everywhere, from the camps of displaced eastern Indians working as free trappers in the West, to the Texas Revolution, to a dual that killed a Congressman in the Capitol. Deringer's guns have picked up a 'factory' status that they really don't deserve. These guns were made much the same way any other maker did it. They all had apprentices etc to do filing and stocking. Henry Deringer just hired a lot of them and didn't really stick to the apprentice system. I find these guns really interesting because of that variation. The early guns particularly show that a lot of his stockers were coming down river from Berks, Lehigh, and North Hampton Counties. Among the earlier Deringers, I can't say that I've ever seen two stocked in the same pattern. A lot of them were quite curvy like this one. By the late 1830's and 1840's, the comb and toe lines started to straighten out into a pretty consistent pattern.
Sean
