The L.C. Smith Collectors Association
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    Re: Pigeon Grade engraving question Archived Message

    Posted by Shotgun Tom on December 16, 2009, 5:28 pm, in reply to "Re: Pigeon Grade engraving question"

    It's unfortunate that authors sometimes put in print definative remarks concerning grade descriptions and parameters that are then interpreted by readers as "absolutes", as in recent years it has become patently obvious and established fact that, when it comes to Smith guns, one can always find an example outside what was formerly considered established parameters. As Researcher has already pointed out, the earliest known Pigeon Grade advertisement is the 1894 ad he posted; but anyone who knows anything about marketing knows that new products are always "field tested" long before they are cataloged and made available to the general public. Although I was not aware of the ten examples from 1893; I'm not the least bit surprised either, as I suspect Hunter made a special run of Pigeon Grade guns that were distributed to company and named shooters for testing and promotion. Obviously by the fall of 1894 it was clear to Hunter that the Pigeon Grade had found a niche among the competitive shooting fraternity; therefore it was officially offered to the public in the 1895 catalog.
    When we discuss engraving, we sometimes fail to realize that all engraved Smith guns were special orders; either by the customer, or by corporate officials for personal or marketing and promotional reasons. Because of that fact, a customer always had the freedom to specify some degree of engraving variation as long as the amount of coverage was within grade cost parameters; or the customer was willing to pay for the requested extra work. If one studies period Smith gun engraving, one will continually find subtle differences within grade parameters; in some cases a customer might have simply specified on the order, "make mine just a bit different"; or acutally specified a specific scene in a certain manner. If one reads the work of period gun writers from this era, it is clear that many of these guys felt that anyone buying a gun by any maker with a retail price over a specific amount was paying only for "decoration" (extra engraving, gold inlay work, elaborate checkering, and exotic wood); that these most expensive graded guns offered the shooter absolutely nothing in terms of added shooting qualities or durability over a less expensive, but plainer gun by the same maker. These same writers openly critized period makers for producing high grade guns that
    all "looked alike" within grade (maybe they were too familiar with Parker production?); and openly asked "why would a customer want to purchase a supposedly special gun that looked like every other gun the maker produced in that grade"? It was comments such as these that often inspired a buyer to specify variations to a standard engraving pattern so that his (substitute whatever grade you want) Pigeon Grade would be personalized and therefore "different". As regards the Pigeon Grade engraving pattern itself, the most unusual example I have ever seen was shipped in 1902 with all the options, two sets of Krupp barrels, and lockplate engraving featuring pointing dogs on each side in a very similar fashion to the A1 Grade. This gun was featured in the Double Gun Journal, and is a classic and stunning exammple of what Hunter would do for a price, and to please a customer.

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