Unsigned guns

[Ken G]

Some of the conversation in other threads got me thinking about this again.  Why do you think there are so many unsigned guns? 

I asked Jerry Nobles this one time regarding Southern guns and his answer was something I really hadn't thought about too much.  Many Mt.gunsmiths couldn't spell.  That along with not being able to engrave accounted for many.  Another contributing factor for Mt. Smiths was there was little need to.  They had a captured audience being that communities were so geographically isolated.  They were the only game in town. 

Your thoughts? 

Ken

[scooter]

I certainly won't pick a fight with Jerry + likely some merit in his response. That does not account for the many unsigned guns made by those who signed others of their manufacture. I recall Kindig noting he had seen several guns by one maker before he finally located a signed example. There are many many "attribution" guns where the maker is known because others of his work are signed. To me, worse yet are the signed guns for whom I can find no information.

[WElliott]

My speculation is that most early makers were focusing on a very local market and so they assumed  their work was well known in their community. 
As far as they were concerned, their "signature" was all over their work.  In studying Southern guns, it seems to me that we see a higher percentage of signed guns from the 1840's on, when more and more smiths were using ready-made parts that made their work harder to distinguished from other makers, therefore requiring a signature.  Just a thought . . .

[Tanselman]

I doubt literacy had much to do with whether a gunsmith signed, or did not sign, his guns, unless he lived in a very remote and poor area. Illiterate crafstmen usually had the skills to copy a signature someone else wrote down for them. If they could engrave scrolls, they surely could engrave a decent copy of a written name. A good case in point are the many signed Tansel powder horns by Tim Tansel, yet he was illiterate.

Many early Kentucky (state of) guns were unsigned. I think there were probably two primarly reasons. The first is, as Wayne mentioned, that in earlier years most guns were probably purchased and used  locally, and the gunsmith's work basically "signed" itself.

I also think many early guns were looked upon by their owners as a basic working tool, or simple necessity, when homesteading on or near the frontier. Most such guns probably were not looked at as status symbols, as the higher art rifles made in more civilized areas were. Rather, many owners in the backwoods needed a basic rifle that stood up to the rigors of frontier life, just as they needed an axe, a plow, or a spinning wheel to survive. Many of those guns saw hard use, abuse, and often probaby eventualy destruction.  It appears, in Kentucky at least, that until the frontier hardships had settled down and civilization really took hold, many guns went unsigned, particularly plainer ones which included a majority of the guns made there. There were exceptions, of course, like the fine Conrad and Michael Humble rifles and a few others.  Shelby Gallien

[Ken G]

Gentlemen, thanks for the well thought out responses.  
They do lead me to another question along the same lines.  Guns with signatures on inlayed plate.  Is it possible they are recycled barrels where the original builder's name was covered?  I guess I should ask that differently.  I know it possible; do you think it would have been a common practice?    
Thanks again for you comments,
Ken

[Dphariss]

They might have been made at a time when having a rifle with your name on it on the battlefield could have resulted in a visit from the British.
Maybe they were selling them to natives?
I really don't know.
At one time in the US making even one gun made you liable for excise tax. Back excise tax on everyone you made.

Dan

[Tom Moore]

I have also heard speculation that makers apprentices would not be allowed to sign their work. If they, as part of their training, made guns that were close in style to their masters, that may account for many of the unsigned guns that we attribute to a known maker based on style. Of course, how we would ever verify this is completely unknown to me. -Tom

[msmith]

Here is another idea,though be it silly. The customer rides a day or so, to get to the gunsmiths shop. He talks with the smith and decides what he wants. The gunsmith tells him to come back on a certain date and the gun will be ready. The customer makes another day or so ride ,returns to find the maker putting finishing touches to his gun. The smith tells the customer that  it will take a lil longer all he needs to do is sign the work. The customer wants get back to his family and is in a hurry, and takes the gun unsigned.

[wvmtnman]

Someone once told me that many of the early smiths did not sign rifles because of religious purposes.  They felt that god gave them that ability and they should not brag about it.  -Maybe....
Then again, I have a couple rifles, from when I first started,  out there that don't have signatures.  They weren't exactly what I expected.
                                                                                  Brian
                                                                           

[Dphariss]

Someone once told me that many of the early smiths did not sign rifles because of religious purposes.  They felt that god gave them that ability and they should not brag about it.  -Maybe....
Then again, I have a couple rifles, from when I first started,  out there that don't have signatures.  They weren't exactly what I expected.
                                                                                  Brian
                                                                           

Could easily be. "Pride goeth before the fall" etc.
Dan

[The other DWS]

new-guy type question here:

most interesting and enlightening thread.   Would you opine that in general the signed rifles are better quality than unsigned ones?

Were "signatures" a trademark in the original sense?  I wonder what role the signature on a rifle actually meant in its original culture.

I've known a fair number of craftsmen and artists over the years, including several of the custom gunsmiths guild guys.  I'm inclined to think that when a artist craftsman finished a job that he knows is one to be proud of, he'd be more inclined to put his mark on it somehow.  A more run-of-the-mill product might not get it.   

[JTR]

I doubt that we’ll ever be able to determine with any degree of certainty why some makers signed their guns where others didn’t. Or why some makers signed some, but not all.
 
Take a couple of the big name makers for instance. Nicolas Beyer made mostly raised carved fancy guns, although there’s at least one signed uncarved one known, and he seemed to have signed most all of his rifles.

However the equally skilled maker Leonard Reedy never seemed to sign them. I might be wrong, but I think there’s only one Reedy signed rifle known.

Jacob Dickert evidently made a lot of guns over his long working life, from very plain to very fancy, and signed a lot of them J Dickert, with his tomahawk/arrow touchmark between the J and D.
And there’s one that signed D. touchmark, Dickert, and you can see where he afterwards tried to make the D into a J.
And I have a barrel that’s just signed J Dickert, without the touchmark.
Then there’s a good number of rifles that are unsigned, but attributed to him as well.

Then you might as well through in J P Beck with his fancy rifles, who generally signed them, and at least once included deu in his signature, and sometimes INRI on a bottom barrel flat, which seems to signify with help from the lord.

On the other end of the creativity spectrum, there’s an unassuming rifle, uncarved, no inlays with a simple unengraved patchbox, but none the less it’s stamped G Kunkle on the barrel.

None of the above answers the question, in fact maybe just confuses it, but that’s the way it is.
John

[Majorjoel]

Another of the many reasons a gunsmith failed to sign his work. If I was taught by a master who did not sign his rifles, chances are I wouldn't sign mine either. The post on touch hole liners got me to thinking, the only reason I always intalled a T H liner was because That Is What I Was Taught to do.

[Curt J]

Although the majority of unsigned rifles are on the plain side, I have seen some very fine rifles, including fancy target rifles, which were left unsigned. Exactly why, we will never know, but I think there were probably different reasons at different times. Let's face it, those old-time gunsmiths had no idea that anyone 150 or 200 years later would be collecting and studying what they made. Most of them would probably think we were crazy.

[Artificer]

Could some of the unsigned rifles not been signed as that might/would have been seen as a sign of ownership?  

I believe the engraved name on some of the signed rifles where no gunsmith name can be found is actually the original owner's name.  

Another thought I've had is some weren't signed so the gunsmiths would not have to pay taxes on the unsigned guns - especially those they made for what we would call "wholesale" or trade guns.    In the 18th century in Virginia, if you had a closet with a door, you got taxed for that closet as "a room."  No door on the closet and it wasn't conisidered a room.   BIG difference in your tax bill with that door in place.  

Gus

[Ken G]

Thanks for all the thoughts.   I've enjoyed reading the responses very much.  Ken

[Dennis Glazener]

Another of the many reasons a gunsmith failed to sign his work. If I was taught by a master who did not sign his rifles, chances are I wouldn't sign mine either. The post on touch hole liners got me to thinking, the only reason I always intalled a T H liner was because That Is What I Was Taught to do.

This makes sense but also it could mean that an apprentice that wasn't able to sign a gun while working in his masters shop, would be eager to sign his own after he became a journeyman.

I have never seen a signed rifle by John Gillespie (the elder) but his son Mathew and his sons seemed to sign most of their work. Possibly started to differentiate their work from his fathers.

Dennis

[Ken G]

If an Apprentice was working in the shop for the Master wouldn't he be required to do things exactly AS the Master would do?  If that's the case then and an Apprentice smith who was getting close to becoming a Journeyman would make a gun very similar if not exactly like the Masters?  right? 
Ken

[Artificer]

Good point Ken.  Some of those rifles may be indistinguishable from the Master's work 150 to 200 years plus later, depending on how successfully they followed their instructions.

When I was the Instructor of OJT's (apprentices) at the RTE Shop at Quantico, I would draw one rifle for me to Match Condition and three rifles for the new OJT's.  I would do some work and then have them do the same to their three rifles and I would inspect their rifles at every stage.  If something they did wasn't quite right, they modified it or did it over.  While they worked their three rifles, I would do other things while keeping an eye on them.  The guns were built the way I built them so they were very close copies of my work.  When they finished their rifles to my satisfaction, we turned in all the rifles to the NCOIC of the  NM Rifle Section for final inspection.

Now, the Gunny who was the NCOIC of the NM Rifle Section knew my work very well and you can usually tell who did what rifles by the way they do things.  That's part of the reason I was chosen as the Instructor.  After he inspected all the rifles, he came up to me and said, "Gus,  YOU built all those rifles, right?"  I told him I had built one, but the OJT's built the other rifles.  I had a hard time convincing him the OJT's built the other guns as there were only a few minor things he found wrong with them and those were the first rifles they had built.   From those inspections, I made a note on what the Gunny was really looking for.

When we turned in the guns for the next three OJT's,  the Gunny came up to me and stated, "Gus, I KNOW you built all these guns!!"  I asked why and he said they all passed final inspection without anything wrong.  I told him I had taken notes on the first rifles he inspected and assured him the OJT's had built three rifles each.  He walked away shaking his head not believing me.  A couple weeks later, the Gunny came back to me and apologized.  He had seen more work by the OJT's by then and even though they weren't quite as well finished as when I had inspected every little detail, he knew they had built them as he had watched them. 

The point of this sea story is that my OJT's built rifles that were very hard to distinguish from my own work when I inspected every detail.  Journeymen in the ALR era would have built the rifles conforming to the Master of the Shop's standards and they would likely have been hard to tell huge differences at the time, let alone 150 or more years later.

Gus

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

I have heard it spoken many times that , at least in the Revolutionary period, many gunsmiths feared retribution and thus intentionally did not sign their guns. Would this have been a factor in relation to Southern guns as well???

[WElliott]

That certainly makes sense, hurricane.  I know that in Georgia and South Carolina the Torries ran rough shod over the patriots- for a few years.

[mbriggs]

I think you must remember that Gun Makers in the South not only had to worry about retribution from the British from 1776 to 1781, but again from 1812 to 1814 when the South was invaded in both the D.C. & Baltimore area, and the Gulf Coast with the battle of New Orleans.  It also looked like we might go to war with France between 1801 and 1810.  If a Longrifle with your name on it was used to kill a British or French officer, what would they do to your home and gunshop?

Many of the best North Carolina Longrifles that I have seen are not signed.  This is especially true with the Salem and Davidson County Schools.

Michael

[G-Man]

It's a fascinating idea - especially with regard to Carolina pieces.  Although there were mixed loyalties in all of the colonies, the civil warfare was especially vicious in the Carolinas, with both sides at times ruthless in their treatment of the other.   So a gunsmith might not only have to fear the British or their supporters - they might have had to equally fear retribution by their neighbors who supported the Patriot cause.  In the backcountry there were even those who skirted the edge of the conflict, shifting loyalties depending on who was winning in their area that day, with the sole intent of robbery, plunder and murder; sometimes living with hostile tribes, etc.  

I have often wondered is this is one of the reasons we don't see some signed examples of pieces by North Carolina gunmakers who we suspect were working during the Revolutionary War - such as the Bryans. Daniel Boone's wife was a Bryan from North Carolina, and some of the Bryans were Loyalists.   Even in spite of all Boone did for the Kentucky settlements, his political enemies attempted to use his wife's family as a smear on his character and to question his leadership in Kentucky.  So it is interesting to to wonder about some of the Bryans who moved to central Kentucky in the 1770s and 80s that became early gunsmiths.
  
A really excellent book about the warfare in the Carolinas is John S. Pancake's "This Destructive War - The British Campaign in the Carolinas, 1780-82."

Guy

[flintriflesmith]

...They do lead me to another question along the same lines.  Guns with signatures on inlayed plate.  Is it possible they are recycled barrels where the original builder's name was covered?  I guess I should ask that differently.  I know it possible; do you think it would have been a common practice?    
Ken

I don't think so. Putting in a plate would be way more work than simply lightly filing off the name and adding your own. Engraved signatures aren't that deep. Either way the barrel or part of it will have to be refinished.

Signing on a silver plate is, I believe, a regional and individual shop feature--common in some areas and almost unknown in others.
Gary

[flintriflesmith]

...Another thought I've had is some weren't signed so the gunsmiths would not have to pay taxes on the unsigned guns - especially those they made for what we would call "wholesale" or trade guns.    In the 18th century in Virginia, if you had a closet with a door, you got taxed for that closet as "a room."  No door on the closet and it wasn't conisidered a room.   BIG difference in your tax bill with that door in place.  
Gus

I have never seen any documentation that a tax was charged on guns made--signed or unsigned. If you have evidence of such a tax please post it or send me a PM.
The story about taxes on closets in 18th century Virginia is a myth! The story has been popular in house museums forever but there is no documentation to support it. In Virginia county taxes were based on the number of tithables in a household--not the house or the number of rooms in it. Land tax, called quit-rent, was based on units of 50 acres. Personal property taxes in the 19th century were on luxury items like carriages, clocks, and mirrors.
Gary