[NRA 2019] Colt Custom Shop Engraving Live Demo

At the Colt Manufacturing booth at NRA Annual Meeting last weekend, there was a Colt Custom Shop engraver, John Pease, doing a live demonstration of his work on a 1911 slide. This type of work takes extreme amount of patience – the artisan must pay a lot of attention to his work as he cannot afford to make any mistake done on the metal. Unlike a painting where you can paint over your mistakes.

While everyone was in awe, I was afraid to approach and ask for a price for this piece of art. That old saying “If you have you ask, you cannot afford it.” applied in this case.

An engraved gun is a stark contrast to the consumer society we live today where everyone throws their 2 year old smartphones away after they dropped it. It harks back to the old days where people used to fix broken toasters because it was cheaper to fix it than to buy a new one. It was also a time where things are not massed produced.

Today, engravings have simply reserved for countries like Switzerland, Italy, and Germany where they still train artisans for engraving watch movements, knives, and shotguns.

Dickson

Dickson is currently a writer for AllOutdoor who has chosen not to write a short bio at this time.