Roses Flung Riotously

Perhaps the best compliment one can pay an engraved gun, especially a high-art gun, is to fawn over it. Watching a collector pour over an embellished rifle recently-the double resting in his hands the way a sacred book lies in the palms of the pious-I was struck not only by his palpable pleasure but also by just how much time he spent looking at it. Which is just as well, because the object of his desire had taken, literally, years to build and months to engrave. Peter V. Nelson's own gun may be a record-breaker for time invested.

The British gunmaker worked on it only when he wasn't building clients' guns. Also because it represents a unique design, it took longer from inception to completion than any other gun Nelson had ever built. The maker spent untold hours designing and then creating the unique sidelever. I asked him why he'd put a sidelever on a Boss-style over/under. "Because, I've never seen one," he said. "I've always liked doing something different. This is 'my first and only sidelever'-I've had that engraved on the underside of the barrel." Nelson's time and talent-and the extraordinary high-art engraving work of Phil Coggan-were recognized by those who saw the 20-bore at the sixth Gold Medal Concours d'Elegance of Fine Guns, held at The Vintage Cup in September. Visitors chose Nelson's sidelever from among 75 rare and historic guns for the Boothroyd Award, or people's choice award, determined by popular ballot. Before striking out on his own, Nelson served an apprenticeship with James Purdey & Sons, and the first gun he built for himself was a Purdey/Beesley side-by-side self-opener, like the ones he'd built at Purdeys. Engraved in the photo-realist style by Coggan, with scenes of Admiral Horatio Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, it also was displayed in the Concours hall. Coggan was given much more freedom with the sidelever. Flowers were the suggested motif, and Coggan's only instructions were to make the gun "outstanding." Supported by snowdrops, buttercups, cloudberries and a meadow of British and Northern European wildflowers, English field roses of white gold run riot across the action and lockplates. When Coggan first started engraving, he spent a couple of weeks with Cesare Giovanelli in Italy, learning basic bulino-a style his current patrons are happy he has transcended. "In those days I engraved 17 guns a year, whereas today I've spent five months on the gun I'm currently working on and I'm still not finished." Which begs the question: How much time did you spend looking at Nelson's new gun at The Vintage Cup?