Thread: thoughts
View Single Post
  #193  
Old 04-20-2008, 08:38 AM
charles starks charles starks is offline
Platinum
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: idaho
Posts: 503
Default Re: thoughts

i think probably your correct roger .
While I most certainly am not an accomplished graver myself , layout is important regardless of what we do, be it wood carving , or the complete building of an item .
I also cant help but wonder if maybe the political climate of the time played a roll in the Scottish items .
This im thinking would have been different then what we talked about earlier in this thread with the fall of the autocracy in many countries.
Could the standing of the Scots and Irish in and outside England at the time have played a roll ?. I think it very mush could have especially concerning mounting these examples from all iron .
We know that in the time frame these pistols were made England was starving for iron importing most all of it from across the channel .
As such I cant help but wonder if mounting these such pieces in all iron was not only an attempt a durability . As puffer stated ,the weapon was designed to be simply discarded and picked up after the fact . This would IMO have made the chances of this weapon being when later retrieved , still very serviceable .but also I cant help but think this would also have been a slap in the face to the government that they may have saw as holding their people back.

If this was true , then could the engraving itself also been secondary and when speaking of its quality and really nothing more then just a way of elevating the status of a more common person .
Basically what im trying to get at is maybe the engraving , while lacking in its details and proper layout , was more based on just being engraved , with more of a rebellion to the peoples standing of the time .
Could this really have been making a statement such as saying . Here is an example of our people , we are unique , we are strong . There is nothing delicate abut us .
In doing such would not this style while lacking, produced an item that would instantaneously be identified as being produced and done by a specific people . Identifying those people as individuals .

Another thing I wonder is if some of this engraving may not have been done by the owner themselves , not by the builder .?
Some of the work to me looks clearly to have been done after the fact such as the name on the last photo puffer provided as it doesn’t match the quality of the rest of the piece .
Could not also this explain some of the examples that have much lighter and more simple engravings
Reply With Quote