Hello all, I'm new to this forum and am trying to get a handle on a recent pistol acquisition, it's a Smiths Patent heavily engraved with an extremely detailed Morgan bust panel, I have determined based on the engraving and finding one other example with this exact same pattern and Morgan bust that it was done by Nimschke. Thanks in advance for any info.

Rgds
Fritz

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Right side

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Morgan bust

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You have a Otis Smith Company spur-trigger revolver, Fritz. It certainly gives every appearance of having been engraved in the shop of L. D. Nimschke, where a number of other Otis Smith firearms were also engraved.

A very neat gun!
David

Thanks David, she is a really neat one, just trying to get a handle on what I have, this isn't my forte, I'm more of a military firearms collector, this is one that came across my path.

Fritz

Nice little gun. Otis Smith is an overlooked gun maker. I agree with David that it has all the appearances of perhaps being done in Nimschke's shop, but not likely by L.D. himself. I have compared your pictures to the pulls from Nimschke of the guns he, or his shop, engraved. There are several pulls of the oval panel of the Head of Liberty that are very similar to your gun's panel, especially the frame, so the panel might be L.D.'s, work,or under his direction. Usually a quick way to pick out work done by L.D. is that his scrolls are overlapping on his best work, but not always. There are no Otis Smith gun engraving pulls in the known Nimschke pulls - many S&Ws, Colts, Winchester, etc., but no Otis Smiths. That's probably because Otis Smith guns were not widely sold and were originally inexpensive as compared to other makers, although they were reasonably well made foe the period, and so we seldom see inexpensive guns used as a canvas by very expensive engravers like Nimschke. A little side story: Many years ago I was helping a very well known S&W collector work his table at a top gun show and one of the Gun Show Groupies came running up to the table saying" There's a little old lady just came in the door with a paper bag containing an cased engraved S&W and she wants X dollars for it. The S&W collector gave the Groupie a wad of cash and told him to run & buy the gun - pay whatever it takes to get it! He came back with an Otis Smith gun in a cigar box homemade case, worth maybe 25% of what he paid. Win some, lose some! Ed.

Thanks Ed.

Fritz

I note that this gun was in a previous post from 2012 that returned just earlier in this forum. The earlier photos were not sufficient to gauge the engraving and these photos are a little insufficient as well. Not to start a fight with experts I have a lot of respect for, but I want to argue for the position that with sufficient experience and careful examination (usually requiring the gun in hand and a stereo microscope for study) we can attribute some gun engraving to LD Nimschke directly, rather than "to the shop of LD Nimschke" even when not signed or in his engraving pulls. I know the absolute attribution is not to be made lightly because it makes a material effect on value, but using this post as an example, I have one simple question. The photos in general cannot give enough evidence to say LD Nimschke versus "the shop of LD Nimschke". But the one photo of the bust shows enough mastery to invoke my question. If that was done by just someone in Nimschke's shop, how did Nimschke recruit that talent to just work for him and why don't we eventually know that person by name through his own work? For that matter does anyone have any information on how many employees Nimschke had over the years, how many years on average did they work for him or the names of any of them? Certainly there are many "New York Style" guns that can be easily determined to NOT be Nimschke, but I also think he was quite prolific and during some time of his long career he made his bread and butter on smaller guns like this, seldom signed, but probably attributable by careful examination of his technique. To me that bust is superb and since we know this was not an expensive presentation job, that means it was done by very experienced talent in short order. If Nimschke had employees that talented, why did they simply work for what he could pay them?

cb

Good question cb. None of my sources of info. on Nimschke give me any details on how many employees may have worked in his shop, if any. Over his lifetime, he engraved over 5,000 guns plus many other items from dog collars to door knobs. In the book of his engraving pulls it appears he signed about 1/3 of the rifles engraved, but very few handguns, and since it was not the custom to sign engravings at the time he worked, I suspect there are many examples of his work out there, unsigned, and yet to be discovered. It's also natural for an unsigned piece such as the poster's revolver to be attributed to " The Shop of Nimschke" rather than the master himself. That label does not mean Nimschke didn't do the gun himself, just that it can't be proved, as he didn't sign it. ( Unless the actual engraving pattern on a gun is found in Nimschke's pattern book, and even then, it's not an absolute that the entire gun was done by Nimschke. ) Close examples of the bust, and the frame, are found in Nimschke's book of pulls. These were copied from pattern books used by German engravers, and most engravers of the period in America used these pattern books, published by German engravers, to establish their American Styles of the period 1850-1900. As to how many employees are in his shop, perhaps a research of the business directories and census records in New York City might reveal some names , or numbers. Ed.

Thanks for comments Ed. I had thought to search census records and might still do that, but I guessed that the census takers would have gone by residences rather than gather census data at a place of business. If so, there would be no connection with an occupation of engraver and Nimschke's shop specifically. I know a number of gravers and other tools survived which are attributed to Nimschke. It is unfortunate that doesn't seem to be the case with business records. It is just like the perennial search for the shipping records from MW Robinson.

As to the attribution, I understand your logic and the current state of affairs where sellers claim whatever they want (and I definitely find top auction houses claiming attributions that I consider wrong). But it still doesn't seem impossible to authenticate an unsigned work if there is enough evidence in the artefact. Signatures on sports items and record jackets are authenticated all the time based on less evidence than I think is available on some of these guns.

cb

CB, A census search would be difficult w/o the name of a specific workman, as you say.( I assume you have Wilson's book on Nimschke ) The book list a number of NYC Business directories in which Nimschke's shop was listed over the 40 yrs. he was in business. Often business directories will state whether there are employees. Glode Requa was the collector that found the Nimschke scrap book of all his pulls years ago and he obtained it from Nimschke's descendants, so I assume there are still family members alive somewhere that might have more records, perhaps old photos of the shop and the workers ? A reverse search on Ancestry.com might locate them. Ed.

I'm not sure that it was said in the above post (and I read it entirely and couldn't find it) but it has been said that Nimschke often engraved some part(s) and passed the mundane work over to his shop engravers. Could it be the case with this revolver? Either way it's a neat revolver.

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Mike Maher #283

Your point is widely believed and I have looked at a few guns where that appears to be the case. Unfortunately I have no experience with Nimschke engraving on anything other than (mostly S&W) handguns and as Ed states, the long guns are the more positively attributed and so a definitive study should include as many of those as possible. As pointed out the photos in this post don't come close to being sufficient to make any highly probable calls other than the bust being good enough to see the clear artistic precision. Just a general impression of the main scroll on the other side (right) seems likely to be done by Nimschke to me. What it takes to be more certain is the stereo microscope and going over every scroll at the level of each graver stroke to see if they match Nimschke's technique. In the current photos, the engraving forward of the cylinder doesn't show enough to make any guess of whether Nimschke personally did that or not. Whether that matters in my opinion depends on whether on close examination it not only does not match Nimschke, but is clearly inferior to the naked eye on more simple elements. In that case, the overall piece is devalued. If the overall effect is comparable and the difference only apparent with magnified examination, then I feel the overall piece is basically equal to one completely done by Nimschke.

cb

Most people trying to attribute a piece of engraving to a specific engraver by examining the work for it's tool cuts, lay out, punch work ect is just about useless.
Not totally maybe,,,but nearly.
JMHO

I certainly value your opinion on this, since I know you have been there and done that. I do think some more clarification on what I think I can discern with the microscope observation and not is useful and I welcome more feedback since I don't want to delude myself.

I am making some assumptions:
1. That some engravers had individual ability or habit such that they almost always exhibited a trait in their engraving. For Nimschke an example would be the bold chisel cuts and clear indication of continuous cuts up to 180 degrees of scroll rotation with evenly distributed length of cut and a certain uniformity and attention to detail in punch dot background. There are others for him.
2. The characteristics in point 1 need to be ones that don't seem to be shared or copied by contemporary engravers, so that they remain distinguishing. So Nimschke patterns alone are not distinguishing since they were widely copied. This also means I am talking about specific periods of engraving and not considering a full out "fake". The gun in this thread for example is probably not a fake given its overall condition for example. I have no idea how well a skilled engraver today could fake a 1885 firearm in Nimschke style. But in my experience, most fakes (and I have a couple that I may write a magazine article on) are exposed by small details that the fakers just can't get right.

The upshot of these two assumptions is that the technique works for some engravers and periods but not all. For instance, Gustav Young is a master engraver who was contemporary with Nimschke. But although I can recognize his style, I don't feel I have found specific characteristics that are definitive for him. He had a little more personal variation, but mostly a style that was used by more other engravers. And so, if we move to engraving say after 1910, I would put little hope in this technique. There becomes too many variables, with different and harder gun metals, a larger number of potential engravers and new tools.

I will comment though on the value of high magnification stereo examination of engraving on antique arms in disclosing fakes which were sometimes done using mechanically assisted gravers in the 70s or later. This is a positive test I think when a gun should be attributed to an engraver who only used hand gravers and can be missed with more simple examination.

Being a great artist,doesn't mean that the person has what it takes to strike out on his own,and be an independent.Some are happy to just be an employee with a steady job.
FN certainly had some great engravers,happy to take a salary or do piece work.Other manufacturers as well.