The Legacy Set of Four

Buyers of fine guns sometimes justify purchases in terms of their investment potential, which can be significant during times when stocks and real estate are shaky. But in recent years the returns have been strongest from top-of-the-line classics: guns so pristine, valuable and ornately engraved that they are rarely shot; guns known as “high-art guns.”
    Richly decorated weapons have always played a role in human history, and the British gun trade has built its share. To say that expectations have changed is something of an understatement. Today gunmakers who build high-art guns face special challenges. At these dizzying heights clients expect top jointing, perfectly struck-off barrels and spectacular timber, but guns built with engravers like Phil Coggan, Ken Hunt and the Brown Brothers in mind also enjoy a level of finishing and polishing not seen on those destined for the field.
    Or so I assumed until I interviewed the patron responsible for the Peter V. Nelson Legacy Set of Four. Shooting Sportsman readers know Nelson as one of today’s finest gunmakers—he having apprenticed as an actioner with James Purdey & Sons, worked with Hartman & Weiss and started that firm’s UK operation, and been an independent gunmaker working from his home in Buckinghamshire, England, since 1989. Nelson has made some of the world’s most spectacular guns, and his extraordinary talents have attracted the attention of “best”-gun fanciers and collectors.

Nelson’s greatest patron is an authentic connoisseur who has built his own custom rifles and refinished and restored many guns himself. Speaking of Nelson’s high-art guns versus those destined for the field, he said that there are “no measurable differences apart from the choice of craftsmen.” Nelson takes just as much care with both. Nelson once estimated that he would spend three times as long building a gun with his own name on it as he did making guns under the employ of others—which is no doubt why he is so often the gunmaker of choice for special commissions.
    I asked the fortunate owner of the Legacy Set of Four how long the set took from conception to completion. “I don’t know when they were ordered,” he said. “I ordered four guns, and then realized it might be Peter’s final set before he retired. The idea evolved over time, and we conceived of the idea of the four different types of guns Peter built limited by four matching stock blanks. I would guess the entire process took from four to six years. They came in at different times according to the availability of the engravers. The first—the 28-bore with engraving by Ken Hunt—was delivered in November ’07, and the last—the Brown Brothers over-and-under—came in January of ’09.”
    My concern was that Nelson’s gunmaking skills half disappear beneath the extra ornamentation, like a Christmas tree festooned with baubles. “I don’t want to leave the impression that I only wanted to create high-art guns,” the owner said. “About half of the guns that I have had built have been classic rose & scroll case-color guns with nothing different other than perhaps more highly figured wood and better gun cases.”
    I then learned from Vic Venters’ and David Grant’s book The Best of British that the collector who ordered this set “has ordered forty [emphasis mine] of [Nelson’s] guns.” In the book the client is quoted as saying: “There is a real legacy in the standards that Peter set that other makers aspire to, and that definitely increased quality in the contemporary high-end gun market.”
    One definition of legacy might be “something handed down from a predecessor or from the past,” and the action styles chosen for the Legacy Set of Four reflect this. “The set was conceived as a way for Peter to showcase his lifetime of gun building and embodies the four primary styles that he has made the last twenty years,” the owner said. “The four guns came about because we had a four-blank set of wood, and anybody that has tried to do [such a set] knows how difficult it is to find four matching or appropriate pieces of wood.”
    The first of the set is a 12-bore Boss-style gun in which the bar of the action is filed free of unnecessary projections while the wrist is rounded close to a cylinder without benefit of points and panels. The result is the classic-yet-subtle round-bodied Boss. The gun is inlaid with highly animated gold ducks by Phil Coggan.
    According to Coggan, “Peter just asked me to produce something ‘nice’ on this gun. I wanted to keep it simple, nothing over the top, so I designed an open-pattern gold scroll with just 24-karat yellow and 18-karat green—the same for the fences but in raised and carved gold. The ducks were added with no scene, just left open. Hopefully the viewer will imagine his own scene composition. Sometimes less is more!”
    Green gold? “Silver and 24-karat gold make green gold,” Coggan said. “Generally for a shooting gun it’s not a good idea to have a lot of gold flush or raised because it’s prone to wear and scratching; of course this depends on the amount of use the gun is going to get. Fine game scenes can also wear quite a lot.”
    The second gun is also a Boss-style gun, but this one is a classic over/under in the perfectly proportioned 20 bore. As with the other guns in the set, the engraving was based on the style that the engraver—Alan Brown—is renowned for: deep-relief carving over a stippled gold ground. Speaking of the effort involved in the gold stippling, Brown said, “The gold background gives the gun a much richer appearance than just carved steel, but this does take an awful long time to do . . . each piece has to be overlaid, trimmed and textured!”
    The third gun is a 28-bore on the Beesley/Purdey self-opening action lavishly illuminated with multi-colored gold inlays of quail and pointers by Ken Hunt. With a color case-hardened background, it is a richly contrasting style originated by England’s senior master engraver. As late as the 1970s most British gun engraving went unsigned. It wasn’t until the early 1980s that engravers finally began to see their names on guns and in photo captions. Much of this was thanks to Ken Hunt, who was the first “celebrity” high-art engraver and was the first to sign his work—in the beginning with the Japanese character for the letter H and later with his name.
    The final “gun” in the series is a double rifle. Of .375 caliber it is built on a conventional square-bar Boss action with border panels ending in drop points at the rear of the lockplates. According to the client: “We chose a .375 because we felt that caliber of all double-rifle calibers is proportionally about perfect. In fact, you can look at a photograph of a rifle in .375 and not know what caliber it is. That isn’t true if you see smaller calibers in double rifles. The proportions can get a little out of whack. The .375s of many makers have always seemed to be aesthetically about perfect, so that is why we chose it.”
    Engraved by Paul and Alan Brown and featuring fighting lions and Cape buffalo carved in deep relief on the lockplates, the rifle is reinforced with sideclips, bolsters and a third bite. “Certainly to have the opportunity to have the Brown brothers do two out of the four guns was very appealing,” the owner said. “Initially they were going to do all four, but time constraints meant that it could have stretched out another two or three years. Peter didn’t want to continue his active career that long, so we included Ken Hunt and Phil Coggan in this set. It may sound like they were second choices, but in fact I have always considered these guys the four best engravers that ever lived. It allowed us to complete the set in a timelier manner and also showcased the four engravers’ work.
    “The engraving styles were varied to showcase the different kinds of engraving that Peter’s guns have been given over the years by all four engravers. So who did what basically depended on who was available when the gun was available. The styles then were chosen based on the engraver and what had been done before. The deep carving on the double rifle certainly showcases the incredible carving of the Brown brothers. Ken Hunt’s mastery of multi-colored gold is legendary, and that seemed to be an obvious choice with a delicate application on a smaller 28-bore action. Phil Coggan’s flat gold work has always been a favorite of mine, and Phil’s broad range of skill, as with Ken Hunt, meant that he could have done deep carving as well. Phil’s flat gold work is done with such incredible detail that I thought that for his gun of the set that was the style I would like most. He is able to create a three-dimensional look to the birds in a flat gold inlay that has always astounded me.
    “The whole set is showcased in a Vince Rickards magnificent oak chest with ebony accents and inlays of walnut burl. The interior is carved in goatskin with gold lettering. Vince does all the fitting and leatherwork inside it. You can describe it, but it is even more impressive if you see it firsthand. It is brilliantly finished and a stunning way to display Peter’s Legacy Set.”
Other outworkers included barrelmaker Mick Kelly, who acquired the shotgun tubes from Microfinnish and the rifle barrels from Border Barrels. The stocker was Stephane Dupille, the finisher was David Sinnerton, and the hardening was done by St. Ledger. The toolmaker was Mike Marsh.
    Clearly this set is both the climax and culmination of a career that out of necessity must soon wind down. Yet Peter Nelson’s real legacy may lie elsewhere. Vic Venters believes so at least. According to Venters: “The standards of gunmaking Peter has achieved are universally respected by his peers on the bench—and his standards have raised the bar of quality for all ‘best’ gunmakers.”

Douglas Tate is an Editor at Large for Shooting Sportsman. He intends to ask Peter Nelson to build him a gun the moment his Powerball ticket comes good.