The custom rifle part of doublegunshop.com is still down and have had several folks ask for some more pictures of the Smith Adolph. I started on another thread but did not want to high-jack that one so started a new one.

Mr. Smith sure knew how to write a testimonial.

Burns Lyman Smith was the son of L.C. Smith the shotgun man. He is best known today in regard to the Smith Tower in Seattle.

From Adolph's personal papers.

Finished in the white, 1924 German proofs on barrel and bolt. Krupp Steel barrel, 30-06 half Oct-Round with rib.

Very nice.

I have a 404 using the same take down system.

I couldn't have said it better myself...

Rich

Gets better by the minute.

Superb craftsmanship and engraving.

Keep them coming.

.

Michael, Great find and photos. It obviously need to stop by again this winter to help you appreciate your collection. I'll bring by my new Lee Speed in order to compare handling.

That is a very beautiful gun. I had the privilege of seeing it up close at the Reno gun show a month ago.

Is there any method or need for that matter, to compensate for wear in the barrel thread with that locking system? Quite a peice of the gunmaker's art!

quote:

Originally posted by gzig5:
Is there any method or need for that matter, to compensate for wear in the barrel thread with that locking system? Quite a peice of the gunmaker's art!

Not that I know of.

If they are continually screwed and unscrewed,
then they do tend to wear and come loose.

.

"skun to a frazzle"??????

that's a sex machine, right there!

Anyone care to guess what the design is the middle is?

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Petrov:
Anyone care to guess what the design is the middle is?

A hunting horn ?


http://images.library.yale.edu/sh2/oneitem.asp?id=201


.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Petrov:
Anyone care to guess what the design is the middle is?

Well, considering there is a naked lady on the floorplate,,,,,,,no, I better not guess.

Terry

One would think that it would go with the Goddess Diana theme.

Every time I look at it I see something different but nothing that makes sense.

Eye of the beholder.

I am reminded of Wieland's (quoted, I believe from O'Conner) observation about the similarities between German rifle decoration and cuckoo clocks...

quote:

Originally posted by mauser93:
Eye of the beholder.

I am reminded of Wieland's (quoted, I believe from O'Conner) observation about the similarities between German rifle decoration and cuckoo clocks...

This might be more to your liking, nothing cuckoo clock about it.

Every time I see the Dragon stock the more impressed I am. I really don't care for stock carving but, in this case, I'll make an exception.

Jerry Liles

quote:

Originally posted by Jerry Liles:
Every time I see the Dragon stock the more impressed I am. I really don't care for stock carving but, in this case, I'll make an exception. Jerry Liles

Thanks Jerry, it kind of grows on you. I've not shown it to anyone who did not think that the work was well done.

It was made for Marine Lt. in China in the 1920's.

It's funny how some folks see a German rifle when they look at the Adolph. I see a Classic American custom rifle.

This is another one that I have had people ask if it was German.

We should also remember that Adolph was an artist and it's very likley that he designed the "Diana" engraving.

Another of his efforts, the drawing is from his personal papers.

I love everything metal on it. the dragon stock I do agree is well executed, although again not my style. it is very cool to see his original artwork and then the engravers rendering. Diana must be a pretty unique firearm engraving. I too thought hunter's horn when I saw it, or whatever that horn of plenty thing is called.

Red

quote:

Originally posted by 500N:

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Petrov:
Anyone care to guess what the design is the middle is?

A hunting horn ?


http://images.library.yale.edu/sh2/oneitem.asp?id=201


.

I think you may be the closest yet.

I've look until my eyes hurt for something that would give me a better clue. Always love a mystery, it's one way I learn.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Petrov:
Anyone care to guess what the design is the middle is?

A carrot. The hunter was a vegetarian.



Bruce

Michael

Thank you for posting these pictures. The Adolph rifle is truly a piece of art, form and function all rolled in one. Do you have pictures of inletting in stock and forend?
Thanks again.

James

James

Sorry I took it apart, looked like other Adolphs so I did not take any pictures.

The underside of the barrel has old dried, and yellowed varnish over bare metal. Looks like the rifle was originally finished in the white.

Michael

Thanks for the reply.

James

Does anyone have any easily accessed biographical information on Fred Adolph? Particluarly date of death and address in Genoa NY. I will be near there Saturday (and am mnay weekends), and my wifes family is from that area. I'm curious where exactly his shop was, and if my father in law might have some knowledge of him.

Published Dec, 2008 PS

Custom Sporting Rifle Makers
Part Twenty-Three


Friedrich R. (Fred) Adolph
Revisited
1875-1957

By
Michael Petrov ©

It’s always with a little sadness on my part when I work on material about Fred Adolph. I think about what might have been if he had spent the later part of his life making custom rifles.

Between the time I wrote my first article (PS September, 2002) about Fred Adolph and now, much new information about Mr. Adolph has come to light. With the help of a PS reader, Robert S. Graham, I was able to locate a copy of Adolph’s death certificate. Fred Adolph was born on January 29, 1875 (other documents say 1876) and died in Los Angeles, California on August 15, 1957. On July 1, 1957 six weeks before his death Fred Adolph put together a packet of information containing over eighty letters, testimonials and pictures outlining his time as a gunmaker. He sent it to Gentleman’s Quarterly at their request in an attempt to tell his side of the story for posterity. To the best of my knowledge GQ never published anything on Fred Adolph and the packet of information sat in their files. In 1975, a hundred years after Fred Adolph was born GQ stamped the file “Please Return”. Of course he had been dead for eighteen years by then. For some unknown reason this file was not destroyed and it found its way to my mailbox in the winter of 2007.

In a nutshell the beginning of WWI shut off the supply of parts and firearms from Europe and Adolph who had taken orders and deposits from customers was left holding the bag. One thing I learned was that Adolph had invested a large amount of money in his new catalog which became worthless overnight. One receipt I have for the engraving plates alone was for $237.86. He’d had 5000 catalogs printed and he sold them for $60 as paper waste. He also hired architects to design a modern factory, bought a block of land and went as far as clearing the land bofore everything failed. Even restocking 1903 Springfields became a problem when he ran out of European walnut and could get no more. Fred Adolph hung on for years and even after the war was over he sent more money for supplies to Germany and got nothing. To quote Adolph from his flyer, “To off set the low value of the German Mark the government refused the export license, if the bill is not paid in foreign money, in my case American dollars, and if not a very substantial increase has been made to the foreign buyer, which is sometimes 700%.” He tried but failed to recover monies owed to him by German firms. In 1922 he sued for the amount of $3600 which he claimed was 10% of the actual damages. In 1924 he asked for help from his congressman, John Taber of New York but was told there was nothing Taber could do. Adolph even had problems getting a passport. I was able to locate his passport file which showed a long investigation of many months with the question as to whether he was trying to “skip” the country and run from his debts.

Along with his financial problems came the difficulty of not be able to tell the shooting public what was going on because the shooting press would no longer carry his ads. Adolph then printed letters which he mailed to customers. He later printed an eight page brochure titled “Apologia pro vita sua” (A defense of one’s life). In the brochure were pictures of guns and rifles he had made, copies of newspaper articles about him, a list of articles written about him as well as a list of twenty-three articles written by Adolph and where they were published. Also, he collected testimonials from such shooting greats as Charles Askins, Charles Newton, E.C. Crossman, Henry Ford, George Eastman, Townsend Whelen and others. The back page of this collection is a list of published poems he wrote, a list of poems put to music and an article about his oil painting.


Several Fred Adolph rifles and shotguns have turned up after my first article was written. As a general rule none of the 1903 Springfields he customized have his name on them. If it has a carved stock comparing it to others in one of his catalogs will tell you if the work is by Adolph. On the rifles not carved it takes a little more work to attribute it to Adolph. I would be happy to view pictures of any rifle you think may have been made by Adolph. The picture of the Adolph 1903 without carving was made for G.W. Mixter, a captain of industry who as a young man hunted Brown Bears in Alaska during his college break in 1908 and wrote about the adventure in National Geographic April, 1909 “Hunting The Great Bear Of Alaska”. From the condition of the rifle it looks like Mr. Mixter did little hunting with it.

In my first article I felt that Fred Adolph was living in the New York City area and making stocks for Griffin & Howe. I have now seen a half-dozen Griffin & Howe-marked rifles that I am sure were stocked by Fred Adolph. Friends did try to help. I have a letter from Townsend Whelen to Adolph dated August 23, 1918 where Whelen offers to help find Adolph a job with the Ordnance Department and lists names of people whom he should contact and to use his (Whelen’s) name when writing to them. Henry Ford also helped and Fred Adolph took a job with him as a tool & die maker in 1936 and retired from Ford in 1952. From 1936 until his death in 1957 I have found no evidence that he ever worked on firearms again. I have no idea where Adolph was from about 1930 until 1936. The 1930 Census shows him and his wife Minnie living with their daughter Erika and her daughter Siegried (born in Italy in 1926) in Manhattan. The census shows Erika as a secretary in a book store and Fred as a gunmaker with wife Minnie keeping house. Their address was 63 Hamilton Terrace which was about six miles from Griffin & Howe. About this time the style changed at G&H and every rifle looked like the one before it so he could have been working there. If so I would not know it by the style of work. From about 1926 until his death in 1957 I can find nothing that put him in the public eye concerning gunmaking until his correspondence with GQ.

For every question answered about Adolph several remain unanswered. He lost his house in 1926 to the bank and at the time had at lease fifteen liens against it. He was taken to court for fraud and the charges were dismissed. He was investigated for mail fraud but nothing came of that. After the war and at the height of his financial problems his wife and daughter were touring Europe. His death certificate lists him as a five year Los Angeles resident, a divorced tool & die maker. The information on the certificate was given by his daughter Erika who also lived in Los Angeles at the time.


I am uncertain as to why he chose to be a big player even when all was headed downhill, and just use his talent to build custom sporting rifles like the other custom gunmakers of the day. None of them got rich but they did make a living in their chosen field. It seems that for the last thirty years of his life he never made another custom firearm. Before I read the packet of information that he sent to GQ I had thought that he had put it all behind him but one of the last things he did was try to explain what had happened to him. Seems it did matter in the end.

Fred Adolph’s letterhead always read “The Quality Is Always Remembered, When The Price Is Forgotten”. Because of the quality of Fred Adolph’s work he will always be remembered as a great gunmaker for as long as his work survives. It is my opinion that any of the Pre-WWI American Custom Gunmakers’ work are prizes well worth looking for and Fred Adolph’s work ranks with the best.


I’d like to end my article by sharing one of Fred Adolph’s articles with you. The editor made note that English was Fred Adolph’s second language but that he, the editor, did not change a single word of the article.


Woodchucks A Story of Failures

By Fred Adolph

Outer’s Book August, 1917


“To the fellow to whom killing grizzlies is an almost daily occurrence, who bags his moose with annual regularity and who kills deer in such numbers that he would need a special building if he tried to save all of the heads, to such fellows wood-chuck-hunting may not appear as an exciting adventure, but let me tell you that it requires the hunter’s cunningest wiles and quite a lot of woodcraft to bag one of these little-eyed gangsters. I had more luck in killing such harmless pest as lion, panthers, etc., somewhere between Cairo and Cape Town than I had in hunting ferocious woodchucks, as will appear from the entirely truthful (cum grano salis) reported happenings. (with a grain of salt, mp)
One day, about five years ago, my neighbor came across the street and accosted me with the words: “you’re a gunmaker?” I admitted modestly that I was guilty of making shooting irons in my spare time and expected a fat order for a gun.
“There is a woodchuck on my meadow----get a gun and shoot ‘em.”
I had moved to that little village of Genoa only a few weeks before and was anxious to start friendly relations with the folks around me, so I grasped the only
Rifle available at the time and went after the woodchuck with a 500/450 Cordite Express, a rifle with about 5,000 lbs. muzzle energy.

The rifle itself had been written up only a short time before in Outer’s Book and I suspect Mr. Chuck in some mysterious way had got enough knowledge about the striking energy of that 500-gr. bullet at 100 yards to consider a more intimate acquaintance undesirable. He moved away just when I pressed the trigger and consequently I made a little impression on that chuck, but so much more on the surrounding real estate. There was now what they call over there in Flanders a mine crater, and the only difference was that we could occupy it without encountering any armed resistance of the enemy. Five minuets later I saw the chuck inspecting the newly dug hole and would have liked to know his opinion about the species homo sapiens.
I went after that woodchuck and his compatriots with various weapons, but unvarying results and spent, in the course of the years, a fortune in perfectly good ammunition of American, German and English manufacture. I fired at them slow moving missiles, which I could have outrun easily, and tried to kill ‘em with cartridges of superhuman velocity, bullets traveling at the rate of a mile per second, but no scalp adorns my wigwam yet.
That state of affairs finally got on my nerves and it was my deadly determination to exterminate those pests wholesale and show the village people a thing or two. About two hundred yards north of my place, on a steep decline, dwelled a gang of chucks in greatest disharmony.

Thither I went with a four-barrel gun and posted myself on a big rock; right under me was the subterranean parlor of the bunch and the noises emanating from it seemed to indicate that there was again the usual trouble between husband and star boarder; from time to time one of the fellows came out for moments, bleeding around the nose, entirely blind against the peril lurking only about 8 feet above him. Finally one of the gang, evidently the husband, came out for good, settled down about three feet away from the entrance to his once happy home and meditated about starting divorce proceedings. Right here he was interrupted by a full charge of No. 4 from two 20 ga. shot barrels, which tore away the whole of it’s south pole; the front part kept it’s seat, if I my use this somewhat incorrect expression, and the eyes looked at me with an expression of surprise, as if he was going to say: “Well I will be darned,” etc. I shot him the 220-gr. Bullet of the Krag cartridge into the shoulder and he was perfectly dead now. I had still a .22 Winchester cartridge in the top barrel, and as I did not want to crawl down to the chuck with a loaded gun the easiest way to unload it was to discharge that little cartridge. I fired it into the dead chuck. Before the smoke had cleared the chuck had also cleared away and was in his hole, the .22 having put him to life again; since that time I don’t believe any thing that people write in the magazines about the killing properties of the .22 Winchester.
When I was a boy 10 years of age I went fishing once and had an encounter with an enormous snake, the battle ending victorious on my part. I took the stick the snake had been killed with and tried to throw the reptile into the water. The intention was good, but the outcome of it was different. The snake flew into the air and I was still wondering where it went when suddenly it descended and settled down around my neck. In a terrible frenzy I tried to get rid of that boa constrictor, but tied a perfect knot and fell down unconscious on the bosom of pitiful mother earth, where a farmer found me an hour later, the snake still adorning my neck. Since that day the unexpected view of a snake has an almost paralyzing effect on me.
Now, last summer I was again after one of those eternal woodchucks and crawling along on my belly at the rate of one inch per minute towards a knoll, barring the view of my prey. I reached the knoll and brought my gun forward, when suddenly, about two feet from my face, arose the head of a terrible big snake.
I had a most sickening feeling in my stomach-in my brain compartment whirled it around cobra, garter snake, rattlesnake, eel, and then with an almost superhuman effort I retired in one of those masterly retreats mentioned now quite frequently in the war reports. The woodchuck sat upright about 30 feet away, grinning maliciously, and disappeared only when the rural peace was disturbed by the discharge of my fowling piece, which sent the snake into eternity. It was a harmless blacksnake, my neighbors say, but you can’t believe those fellows, you know.

Two yeas ago I saw one of the chucks in a tree about 8 feet from the earth. I never had hear that woodchucks are such climbers, and thinking it might be a coon I very foolishly fired at the beast with a long range rifle, a .30 Adolph Express. I did not hit it, of course, but the bullet landed about a thousand yards father north-north east in the brick plant and played havoc there; the manager, very politely, did not say anything about the damage, but our family physician, Dr, Skinner (nomen et omen) (prophetic name mp), who owns most of the stock of that brick factory, got even with me when he wrote his bill for professional services.
In the run of years I became the laughing stock of the village hunters; they chuckle when they hear that people sometimes spend hundreds of dollars for a gun made by a fellow who is unable even to hit as woodchuck with one of his own costly weapons.. Just to show me how easy it is to get a chuck the son of my neighbor took his $3.98 single-shot shotgun, walked toward such a beast and killed it at 40 yards. I cannot describe how I felt when he threw the carcass at my feet, (Diffultum est satiram not scribere). (It's difficult not to write satire mp)
Of course I have a lot of perfectly reasonable reasons why I cannot hit those animals, and to the station agent here, who kills chucks every year with a venerable .38 Winchester of very ancient vintage I explained the matter to mutual satisfaction that the woodchuck is a old-fashioned animal and cannot be killed with such hyper-modern weapons as made by me.
Getting a woodchuck with a rifle and shotgun seemed to be out of the question at the time and I look for an arm more prosaic, but also more efficient-at least I thought so. So one day I shouldered a shovel which had led a somewhat sunless existence in the depths of our coal bin and wandered toward the woods where I knew of a populated woodchuck hole.
Right on top of it was a hollow tree, to which I paid no attention whatever. I hung collar and coat on that tree, rolled up my sleeves and begin to dig like the Dickens, until the sweat stood in pearls on my brow. One of the roots of that tree was in my way and I tried to cut it with my shovel, when suddenly a cloud of gases (sic) engulfed me, a dark projectile tore the hat from my nut and a terrible coughing spells convinced me that those terrible Huns had made a gas attack on me. Slowly only my returning senses told me that I was still on U. S. territory, but that I had made at last the personal acquaintance of Mr. Skunk.
I shed as many of my garments as decency allowed – it was 5 o’clock in the afternoon – and hid in the bushes until at suppertime the lady of the family appeared on the ridge line about 100 yards away and called me to supper. I told her to deposit a clean outfit of man’s garments on the rim of the woods ; then I dug a hole, threw into it all the infected stuff and covered it three feet high with dirt. Afterwards I washed my body in a nearby spring and donned the clean clothes, finally reaching my home after dark. There, however, I was banished from entering it, had to sleep the following night in my little girl’s playing tent in the garden, and nobody hindered me to express my sentiments toward chucks and skunks in the most shocking and profane language. This was, in so far, the most discouraging of all my experiences throughout the whole affair. I hadn’t even got a glimpse of a woodchuck.
These animals are also responsible for the total collapse of my authority as head of the family. About three hundred and fifty yards away on the west hill is (oh yes, there are chucks east, north and west of my place) well – 350 yards away on the west hill is a woodchuck hole out of reach of my investigation on account of several barbed wire fences. One afternoon two of it’s inhabitants played happily around the burg when the lady-who-married-me grasped a three-barreled gun which I targeted the day before. Putting a Krag .25 shell into the chamber she raised the 100 yards sight, aimed about a tenth of a second and let fly. Out there in the far West one of the chucks collapsed and on my face froze that grinning expression which appeared when I saw here shooting with the 100 yard sight at 350 yards. Now I get reminded of the affair every time the question comes up for debating: who is boss in the house?
One day I almost succeeded. I had just wrapped paper around a gun and looked for a box to ship it in, when my little girl came into my workroom and cried “Father da ist ein woodchuck draussen.” (Father there is a woodchuck outside) I tore the paper away, put a .22 Savage H.P. into the gun and aimed at the chuck. I could only see the brown back in the grass, consequently did hold a little lower and puller the trigger; the animal jumped high into the air and fell dead in its tracks. The lady who had witnessed the act, said very calmly, “That is no chuck at ll.” And when I came down to the scene of conflagration I found a dead rabbit; so it came, that the only woodchuck I ever killed was a rabbit.”

Delightful reading - both the Smith letter and the Adolph story.

But talk about a tough economic break in life! Seems as though it may have ruined his enthusiasm for gun making.

Many thanks for posting such interesting material, Michael.

Thanks for posting this- very interesting and a great story by Adolph!

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Petrov:
One would think that it would go with the Goddess Diana theme.

Every time I look at it I see something different but nothing that makes sense.

Michael,

Would not that be Artemis, the Goddess of the hunt?

Stephen

Artemis, the Goddess of the hunt




Diana Huntress

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Frith:

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Petrov:
One would think that it would go with the Goddess Diana theme.

Every time I look at it I see something different but nothing that makes sense.

Michael,

Would not that be Artemis, the Goddess of the hunt?

Stephen

Artemis is Greek. Diana is Roman. Artume is Etruscan. Carian (ancient Turkey) is Hectate.

The list goes on.....