Hello phenson
You never gave me any wrong impression in the least, I enjoy useful Intelligent conversation about Roper's stocks, But I find of Little use closed mind thoughts on his tell tale signs which I have seen Far too Many variation's from him in the past to place a solid assessment on his stock traits. I see Roper's Stocks as the S&W revolver variations and have had to learn to Never say Never with anything Roper as Not all Reference Books are 100% Correct. A lot of the accuracy of their content has to be observed on when these Book's were actually written, and how finely detailed the author was on his findings. There is very little on Matheis Gagne or his stock making practices other than what Walter Roper wrote about him and most of that was done back in the mid to late 1930s time span, and you have admit Walter Roper gave very Little Praise for the man that made his stocks so Famous.
There was a couple of American Rifleman magazine article's written on Matheis Gagne also written by Walter Roper at Later dates in the mid 1940s if memory serves me correct here as I do have both of them in original copy form, but Perhaps most of the information Walter Roper was writing in those articles was of older information or content & maybe this was before Albert Gagne was fully involved with the stock making trade as I have not seen any solid proof or dates of when Albert actually started or Ceased working in his Father's stock making shop. Nothing was noted from Roper about Albert. Many Early examples were dated with a sharp scribe, on the rear of the panel but many later ones were not, so we can't use that as usefull information.
I have a good friend and he is a well respected associate member of the S&WCA as well, who has a nice set of Roper Thumb Rest stocks that are not dated but have a Number scribed into the back of them. After viewing them, It has made me wonder if it was a work order number as it is far too short to be a guns serial factory stamped number, or perhpas a production number.
I guess with so little information about the man or his shop help the wonder or quick judgment of his Older making traits will continue to arrise. Good luck locating a set of -N-Sq. Roper shooting stocks I was real glad to have found mine when I did, I have not seen any since but will buy any that may come along in the future, You will know his work when you place them in your hand as I have felt plenty of other Roper stocks in the past and they all have that melt in your hand feeling of comfort, and those that have his work in their collection know exactly what I mean about this comfortable hand fit, that's something you can't learn from any books written about him now that attribute was something he strived for, and accomplished Well as far as I am concerned...
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