Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Throw Back Thursday - W.H. Gough

I've posted these before. These are a bit better in quality as they are scans vs. old xerox copies.
I managed to locate a new contact who has direct knowledge of Mr. Gough's life and times.
The WHG biography I'm working on for David's engraving book is looking up!!

another gift

Very nice.

Great info, i read somewhere he engraved for Winchester before he did for savage, neat history.

He worked for Fox for a number of years before Fox was acquired by Savage. He also did commission work for other companies and possibly for individuals. I'm sure Rick will chime in here with the whole story.

Well, not the whole story. You'll need the book for that.

A quick summary may be interesting to some.
William Henry Gough 1875-1959 was long lived, family man, skilled craftsman and good businessman with a big heart.
In 1900 at the age of 25 in Meriden, CT William, his wife & family of 6 took on William's half brother Harold after both Henry Sr. and his second wife died.
Williams career flourished from Aubry, Parker, Fox, Colt, Remington, Savage and others.
While at Fox, William, brother John, brother Harold and son Alfred all worked there simultaneously as engravers.
William lost his wife in 1933 and remarried a young secretary while working for Remington in 1939. He proceeded to have a child with his 35 yr. old wife at the age of 65.
William continued engraving until 1954 in Utica and then retired.
Many examples of Gough's work are highly sought after by collectors of the above named manufacturers.
More to come...

Probably so. Meriden/Parker, Hartford/Colt and New Haven/Winchester are all in proximity.
I'd guess as a contractor depending upon the time period because there were still Ulrich's at Winchester.

He did very good scrollwork. I can't say that I consider him in the same class as Enoch Tue for "artwork", much less some of the other greats like Ulrich's. Just a personal opinion.

The Parker & Fox collectors would probably beg to differ.

Gough's work for Savage was a few measly pistols, 99K's and few others of which patterns were simple and specified by Savage.
The bulk of his work were special order for the other gun manufacturers.
While at Fox Gough engraved only the most high grade shotguns while lesser grades went to his underlings. 99K's may have followed this pattern as well which may explain the slight variations in style.
A surf of past auction sites will produce some pretty exquisite pieces.

The Ulrich's were colorful, prolific and well documented, but a bit over rated in general. Most agree Conrad F. was best among them.

Louis Nimschke and Gustave Young were arguably the best of the best.
Nimschke performed contract only out of New York City for many manufacturers and Young's work was for Colt.

I've seen a couple of 1930's 99s that were recreations of earlier catalogued Enoch Tue patterns - B engraving for example.

To say they were generally underwhelming to ME is an understatement. It's subjective, and I'm sure I haven't seen all of his work. I just don't think he was the artist that Enoch Tue was on 99's.

Yea, I hear ya. Tue's D, E, F & G's are spectacular. And the variations in style within are minimal.

Shotguns and pistols have mostly rounded surfaces and the degree of difficulty is far greater than flat surfaces.

Comparing engravers is kinda like apples & oranges as most are so very different.

I view engraving like this, "they're all good, some are just better."

Agree totally.

yep!

This is the original photo from the Utica Observer article.
Master engraver William Henry Gough. (gough as in cough)
A gentleman with a tie...

Good picture!

Looks like a revolver of some sort in hand and a shotgun on the bench....

Amazing talent and skill.
True artwork.
Alvin A White, Arnold Griebel, Rudolf Kornbrath, etc......Amazing artists.....

Siegfried Rentzschke engraved Savage rifles ~1955-60. He was also a master engraver for A.A. White Co. for a period.
Both are highly collectible.

Ha!
I can't believe I didn't mention Rentzchke's name. An incredible talent!
I would love to add on of his pieces of work to my collection.
Thanks for the reminder!
Ed

Not sure how many 99F's Rentzschke did, but, a pretty small number. I'm aware of five.
Probably have better luck locating some of his S&W work via AA White.

Rick, do you have my Rentzchke 243 in your data? Does that figure of five include #500,001 and 1,000,000 or are they just 5 plain old F's?

9289xx .243
7641xx .308
500001 .308
1000000 .300

The other may be a duplicate. Only limited pics w/o s.n.