Engravings on the rifle stock

[Gary of CA]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

I've seen some stocks with carved initials at Springfield Armory National Historic Site.

[rogue]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

Why a company number and letter on the '42, a very good question I cannot answer.
The Sharps is for sale at Bluegrey Relics in Nashville, Tennessee, and yes, to answer two questions, there are excellent pictures on their website.
Steve Sullivan

[58 lorenz]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

I'll post a photo of several originals I have. The top rifle is a (rifled) M1842, marked with a simple "H" on the side. The middle rifle is an M1861. The bottom is an 1854 Lorenz, with the angled, "upside-down" marking I mentioned earlier.
It is interesting to me to note the same style of lettering on the two lower rifles.



Doug Price

[MuleyGil]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

I bought the Enfield that is shown in the thread below. It is marked BHS Co B 14 VA and there was a soldier in that company with those initials who later became an officer. Did he take his Enfield home when he was commissioned and carve on it during the War while on furlough or perhaps later on, after the War?

No why to tell, but I think it's a pretty neat old gun.

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7703

[Jim Mayo]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

I bought the Enfield that is shown in the thread below. It is marked BHS Co B 14 VA and there was a soldier in that company with those initials who later became an officer. Did he take his Enfield home when he was commissioned and carve on it during the War while on furlough or perhaps later on, after the War?

No why to tell, but I think it's a pretty neat old gun.

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...ead.php?t=7703

And I think you got a good deal! I like it.
Did it have any other stock marks?

[Todd Watts]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

Absolutely yes, they very often did mark their stocks. There are hundreds of surving examples of such personilazions done to guns' stocks. Usually these seem to be initals, rather crudely engraved, sometimes a company name or letter is with them. Often, the men named their gun and put this on the stock. The Blockade Runner has 2 guns that were beutifully carved. One is a Sharps 1859 that has a wonderful scroll pattern carved along with "traction" lines on the wrist like an attempt at "checkering" that they did not cross the lines with. Another is a Starr revolver that has the same style traction lines carved around the grip. I would guess the same guy did both judging by the traction grip lines. There would be little reason to do this after the war when men lost track of their guns or more usually simply stuck it under the bed and only got it out a few times a year. Personalizing a stock has always been the passtime of the soldier in the field, bored at a campfire, or in a tent on a rainy day, or alone on picket duty. A soldier loves his weapon, and wants to keep it "his own" so the personalizing allows him to identify it in a stack quickly. They did it long before the Civil War all around the world, and did it all the way through our Korean War. You still find many WWII and Korean War veteran rifles with hand-carved stock markings.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

Hallo!

"Personalizing a stock has always been the passtime of the soldier in the field, bored at a campfire, or in a tent on a rainy day, or alone on picket duty."

"Always" is a risky universal.
"Always" should make every gun personalized, but I do not think period accounts or surviving artifacts would support it.

I am not saying it was not done. I would say that it can be hard to document when it was actually done, in service or after the War.

At any rate, from a research and documentation stand-point or methodology, "always" or "never," IMHO, are two words very risky to use where validity and reliability come into account.

;) :)

Curt

[Clsinclair]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

My M-1842 Harpers Ferry has GW engraved rather crudely on the stock. The finish where the engraving is blends right in with the remainder of the stock. I took the barrel off yesterday and someone had stamped XXV underneath the barrel. Also found an inspectors stamp at the part of the barrel where the breech plug screws in. I sold another 1842 Harpers Ferry and the only markings on the stock was a 48. I have yet to find a serial number on any of my original muskets.

Claude Sinclair

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

Back on the original topic...the question was "Should I or should I not personalize my weapon by carving (whatever) in the stock?"

No doubt there are examples of the practice, and a great many examples of no stock carving. The broader question is, does this improve or lower the historical feature accuracy of the reproduction weapon? I say it has no effect. As I suggested earlier, accuracy modify (de-farb) your reproduction properly and it will stand out in the stack very well on its own.

Hence if something has no upside, and the downside risk of ruining the appearance of the stock...applying a standard decision making model to this question makes it a no-brainer. Conventional wisdom is don't do it. That said, nobody really cares too much about what somebody else does to his own rifle-musket. The hobby is very democratic that way...

[Todd Watts]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

Hallo!

"Always" is a risky universal.
"Always" should make every gun personalized, but I do not think period accounts or surviving artifacts would support it.

Curt

Point taken, Curt.:D What I guess should be said is that there is indeed a long tradition of soldiers personalizing "Betsy" while in service. We think today of the regulations and rules of our modern society, with plastic stocked guns, and a very regimented military where even today's fighter planes cannot have logos painted on them any more. But until recently, men were issued equipment as as long as it was not rendered unuseable a lot was allowed. I could see company officers instructing men to mark the reg't or company designataions to identify the company's valued arms, which would explain the occasional Reg't or Comp. marks. A lot of marking are illegible now on originals and may be some sort of inspector's marking, a soldier's marking, or just a bad ding that got worn so we think it is a purposeful stamping. Lord-knows I've racked my brains often enough over dings trying to figure out what they were.:o

On my own Enfield, I carved my clan badge. I know it is far too intricate to look "original" as I don't believe many men would have had a clue what their clan badge design looked like. But, heck, it gives me a seg-way to talk clans when people see it.:D

[Bob 125th NYSVI]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

I guess I wonder if much of the engraving we see today was done post war.

I can see where an officier might encourage marking weapons if there was theft. And I can see where a soldier in a unit that had suffered theft might personalize his so he wouldn't be the one short a weapon when the sargent blows a gasket.

But I do wonder if some soldiers did not acquire weapons after the war and personalize them as a momento of service.

We do know that unless the sourthern boys ran off with them, once surrendered they weren't getting their weapons back. And I have a really hard time imagining the officier giving the "good-bye" speech to a northern unit and letting the boys take their individual weapons home (I'm sure it happened but enmass?).

But once collected the government had to SOMETHING with the weapons. Some we know were converted but some must have been sold off as surplus. Could that be where these engraved weapons are coming from?

[Jimmayo]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

In the case of CS carvings, IMO most are wartime for the reason already mentioned. The stock with the "18th SC" carved on it I have pictured on my web page is definately a war time marking and a good example.

Yankee guns are a different animal. Many were bought from the government at the end of the war and taken home. Bannerman also sold many. I believe that is what happened to the LG&Y I posted a picture previously. It has a post war corps badge inlaid in the stock and several intials and a corps badge carved at various places. The initials may be war time but the silver corps badge is definately post. I would like to think that the average post war soldier had more to do than sit around and carve on a musket stock and for this reason I think the carvings on this particular gun were made during war time.

Each weapon with stock carving has to be evaluated individually using what information is available about the province of the gun. There are enough with probable wartime carvings to provide evidence that it was done.

Just a note to the folks quoting the regulations about defacing government property and the marking of muskets. That would be my last choice for a reason they were not marked. My time in the mostly non-volunteer military was spent testing just how far the regulations could be stretched and ignoring them if possible and when it was necessary to get the job done. Human nature doesn't change and I think the boys of the 1860s were just as frisky as we were in the 1960s and ignored what they could get by with.

[MuleyGil]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

"Did it have any other stock marks?"

Jim,

None that I can recall.

[Ian M.]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

Changing tack just a bit -- was it common practice to engrave or stamp anything into the buttplate (i.e., by the manufacturuer, the ordance inspector or the by the unit issued the musket -- not talking the individual here). For example, one sutler selling de-farbed CSA enfields offers to hand-engrave a rack/lot number on the buttplate.

I've seen a few photos of claimed authentic peices that seem to have unit or other identifying information engraved or stamped (some rather crudely), but I have no clue if this practice was the exception or the rule.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Engravings on the rifle stock

Hallo!

Yes. It was Federal practice to stamp "U.S." into the buttplate tang...

And yes, there are some US and CS pieces with what appears to be a single or double number engraved or stamped into the buttplate tang in wha tis believed to be a similar manner to what the British did with their "fraction" system of often company and individual "rack" or "man" numbers.
Some historians/collectors believe that such markings were for garrison/fort pieces, where the formalized "man" and "rack" number make more sense.

I had an M1861 Springfield with the buttplate tang surcharged "SC." When it went on and what it means, who knows ("South Carolina" is nice.... ;-) ).

Curt