Product Details
A HEUNE ENGRAVED .32 (RIMFIRE) SMITH & WESSON OLD MODEL No.2 ARMY REVOLVER, serial no. 42614,
circa 1867, with octagonal 6in. brushed bright barrel with correct style later engraving by Benno Heune imitating the period factory style, the top-rib signed 'SMITH & WESSON SPRINGFIELD MASS', the inner face of barrel stamped with a small elk's head and the word 'HEUNE' together with '2XX', en-suite engraved six-shot cylinder and frame, exposed hammer and spur-trigger, flared walnut grips (the left cracked and repaired, traces of silver plating in sheltered areas
Provenance: Benno Heune was a Californian, whose first forays into engraving came in 1944.
He was convalescing in a military hospital at Pearl Harbor, where he would engrave knives and guns for fellow servicemen at a cost of twenty-five cents per letter. After the war, Ben returned to California, where he became a firefighter in Modesto, but by 1955 he was ready for a change, and he left the fire service to start a sporting-goods store and marina near Bridgeport. He also began working as a guide. His talents did not go un-noticed, and he studied engraving under Jack Morris, in his silver and saddle shops in Reno, Nevada, while continuing in the sporting-goods and guide businesses.
After a period of 20 years in retail, Ben sold his store, and took up engraving full-time, becoming well-acquainted with the Gravermeister, a miniature air-hammer-like engraving tool used on extremely hard surfaces (like guns).
Eventually Ben ended up teaching classes in both manual engraving and 'Gravermeistering' at both Lassen College in California, and at Rio Grande in Tucson, Arizona.
Ben's surname 'Heune' means 'elk' in German, and Ben's signature on his engraved guns was a small elk's head and his name, usually forward of the trigger-guard, on the bottom of a revolver's frame or in other out of the way places. He also wrote what is today considered to be one of the best introductory books on engraving, 'Basic Engraving'. Sadly, Benno Heune died in 1999, but is fondly remembered by many former students and current engravers who studied under him
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Estimate £2,000-2,500
Sold as an exempt item under Section 58 (2) of the 1968 Firearms Act, to be held as a curiosity or ornament