Posted by John Houchins on March 25, 2007, 9:58 pm, in reply to "Albert E Krause"
Dear Tom. The information in the book came from a reproduction of an article in the Fulton newspaper about A.E.Krause. That particular newspaper suffered a fire and there were no original of the article available for inspection to see whether part of the article may have been left out which may have contained the name of the particular mint. While you may not be able to find a Smith engraved and signed by Mr. Krause it is fairly safe to assume that nearly all post 1913 guns of grade 3 and above were engraved by him. Mr. Krause was a full time employee of Hunter Arms and the old factory employee records do not mention any other engravers until about 1945. There were not a lot of high grade guns made during that 30 year period ,so it is only reasonable to assume that they were engraved by him. I am sure that some of the simple line work and lower grades were engraved using templates by assistants, but apparently they never were considered even apprentice engravers. The new book has an extensive list of employees in the history section with job classifications out beside their names. You may find this interesting. I suggest that you go ahead and get you a pre-1913 grade 3 or above or even a post 1913 Trap or Specialty or above and assume that it was engraved by the man himself. That would amount to an almost irrebuttable presumption. Good Luck !! John Houchins