Need some identification help

[WESTbury]

A good friend of mine bought the rifle shown in the attached photos at an auction a few years ago. The auction house was unable to identify contemporary builder who made the rifle. It was described as being in the style of J.P. Beck and it does resemble one of his rifles shown in Kindig's book. I hoping one of talented builders on this forum can identify the builder. Thanks in advance for taking the time to look at the photos. Naturally my buddy made it easy by not providing an overall length shot.   Kent

[rich pierce]

Classic JP Beck very nicely done. Maybe T Caster can chime in.

[flinchrocket]

It looks like it has a Chambers Golden Age lock. How long has Jim been making those? 20 yrs.

[Mike Brooks]

Hard to believe that gun isn't signed.

[WESTbury]

Mike,

If some builder made a high quality rifle, as you do, where might he leave his mark should he decide not to sign the top of the barrel?

I was thinking inside the lock or patch box. I've seen original Brown Bess Muskets with the stockers name in the ramrod channel.

Kent

[Bob McBride]

EK just scratches his initials behind the side plate sometimes. Could be anywhere. I had one a few years ago signed beneath the toe plate.

[WESTbury]

Thanks for the tip Bob, I'll pass it along.

My friend is a very experienced antique arms collector, but just "saw the light" in the last year or so, and is getting into long rifles. Actually, he bought his first antique firearm when I was only 10 years old. That was 1958. He's funny, in the last three weeks he bought a bunch of books on long rifles, including the new Moravian book, Kindig's book, etc, etc. By the way he is Scots-Irish (stubborn) like half of me, so I know he'll be around a few more years.

Kent

[Mike Brooks]

Mike,

If some builder made a high quality rifle, as you do, where might he leave his mark should he decide not to sign the top of the barrel?

I was thinking inside the lock or patch box. I've seen original Brown Bess Muskets with the stockers name in the ramrod channel.

Kent

Bottom of the barrel, in the barrel channel, back of the sideplate or under. Who ever built that gun was/is a top flight gunstocker.

[WESTbury]

It is a great looking rifle.

You know, seeing as how I'm one of his best buddies for years, he should take pity on me and gi...………….Nah!

Just a thought.

[Shreckmeister]

Very nice workmanship.  It would fool someone who didn't know better.  I thought I saw that one auction within the last year.
I hope you can figure out the maker.

[WESTbury]

Shreckmeister--Thanks for your input.

You are correct about this being in an auction a few weeks ago. I guess I misunderstood him about when he bought it. He must have been talking into my deaf ear.

[Jim Chambers]

I once owned that rifle.  I bought it from Jim Alexander at Robin Hale's mini-KRA show in Knoxville, TN.  I owned it for a couple of years and sold it to Bob Melancon who wanted it desperately.
It was made by a maker in PA named Foglesanger.  I don't remember his first name, possibly Andy.  I was told he had access to some of the original rifles in or from the Kindig collection, would borrow them, take them back to his shop and make a copy including "aging" them to look just like an original.  He was extremely good at this.  Some took issue with him not signing or dating them because to the untrained eye they looked exactly like an original 18th century piece.  Had I not recognized the lock as being one I made I, too, would have assumed it was an original JP Beck when I first saw it laying on Jim's table.  I bought it because I figured it was as close as I would ever come to owning a real Beck rifle and wish I had it back.

[WESTbury]

Thanks Jim, appreciate your great info. I called my friend and told him what you wrote. He's quite pleased.

[Kevin]

Greetings Westbury,

Mr. Chambers mentioning the "Fogelsanger" name rang a bell with me.  Dropping "Fogelsanger" into the search book here on the forum turned up another thread that appears to be about the same rifle.

Kevin

[WESTbury]

Kevin---Thanks for the "heads up"!

[Top Jaw]

From the looks of this gun, I would be surprised if this guy didn’t do restoration work for Kindig. Maybe that is the reason he also got access to other rifles to borrow and replicate.

[gusd]

A friend of mine has an A. Foglesanger Beck . Looks like an orginal Beck also,but is marked on top flat
1990 A. Foglesanger, in Very fancy script.
Wish Don Getz was with us, as he could tell us much about Andy.
Gus

[Rajin cajun]

The rifle illustrated on the blog is not the rifle I acquired from Jim . It is the rifle that Gus described.
I spoke to Mr Foglesanger shortly after I acquired the rifle. He was not a full time builder, in fact the rifle that Jim C. and I owned he had built for his brother. He restored antique furniture for a living, and he did a lot of work on furniture for Joe Kindig. He had access to the Kindig collection of rifles. He really liked the work of J P Beck . I know of 4 rifles by him and they are all Becks. A fellow collector who knew him said, he could not work from photos or drawings but if he could put his hands on it, the end result would be spot on. His antique furniture work gave him the ability to duplicate the finish of the antique rifles. That rifle of mine was thought to be an original on more than one occasion, by old Ky. collectors!
They were amazed when I would tell them to look at the signature. Their question would be, “who is this guy” ? He did not make many rifles, he passed away a young man with I believe 5 kids. Have more info and good photos of my Foglesanger will find and post as soon as we are done with this tropical storm here in South Louisiana!
Bob

[WESTbury]

Excellent information Rajin Cajun.

Attached is the auction sheet for the rifle plus two overall length photos. My buddy paid $2360. for the rifle. I would say that he got a bargain.

[Top Jaw]

For what this gun was, I think that was a decent buy.  Although the auction description was very good and detailed, and someone seemed to know their stuff, the estimated value of $1000-$1700 was WAY low.   I would have put it in the $1900 to $2800 range, in my opinion.

I guess I was close with my restoration hypothesis. Although it wasn’t gun restoration - it was furniture restoration he did for Kindig.  Which ultimately gave him access to original Beck rifles to take home and study!  Thanks for all the interesting backstory details. I love reading stuff like that!

[Stoner creek]

Those auction estimates often miss their mark with these contemporary long rifles. I just bought a 6k-+ gun for half the price. The auction estimate was $3500-$5500. This contemporary market is VERY subjective these days. You just never know what the market will bear. I was sure happy with my purchase. Will post it in a few days.

[WESTbury]

If any are interested and have not read it already, there is an article from Spring 1977, on the American Society's website, by a doctor that got to know Joe Kindig very well. There are a lot of surprises for me in the article, including the fact that Kindig was a pilot and a yachtsman.