Unidentified Shotgun, highly engraved with gold lettering

MarkFenn

Member
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See if anyone can tell me something about this.. the choke is full and full and it shows that it is made for someone in some sort of gold lettering. The engraving is deep and nice looking, and the gun is actually in better condition that shown in photos. See what you think

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The mark FINITO is a proof mark for finished arms.
The one with the star above crossed arms with a post(??) is the mark of Gardone proofhouse which is a national requirement. AND PSF mark is a proofmark for smokeless powder.
All I can add is this, go to Shotgunworld dot com. Register there and go to the SxS subforum and post your pics there.
I tried to google this heraldic crest, but I've come up empty handed.
Unless there is someone here who is familiar with Italian gunmakers crests (there are oodles of them) that is my best advice friend.
 
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I own a similar shotgun made by Armi U. Gitti. The story of even current Italian makers is a soap opera - good luck. It would seem that the whole Trompia valley was sharing parts and work. Mine is worth well south of a grand and probably less than $500. I had the stock bent and thicker pad added to increase the LOP. I shoot it well and it's not going anywhere.
 
I own a similar shotgun made by Armi U. Gitti. The story of even current Italian makers is a soap opera - good luck. It would seem that the whole Trompia valley was sharing parts and work. Mine is worth well south of a grand and probably less than $500. I had the stock bent and thicker pad added to increase the LOP. I shoot it well and it's not going anywhere.
^My very recent and ever so brief research seems to confirm your opinion.
Do a google maps search of Italian arms manufacturers and it looks like a country wide post nuclear blast map of radioactive fallout.
Just the exact opposite of Canada! :D
 
From what I see its a 1957 sbs made for those pigeon shooting contests,thats why its probably choked IMandEX.FULL,boehler steel exactly Boehler-antinit is used on high grade shotguns.The trademark it has doesnt say anything to me,so Im asking looch,if his gun has this trademark,or the other friend that said it was a Tonolini.
 
The trademark on mine is a pigeon sitting on a branch. The barrels are stamped "acciaio witten" perpendicular to the bore, across the tops near the breach. The site plane is stamped "daino". The left barrel is stamped "ditta u. gitti & g. gardone, v.t."

Not much help for you, I know. But the provisional proof mark on yours makes it a Gardone gun - and that's about all I can tell you with reasonable certainty.

Here's a snippit from another forum that I found while researching mine:

A Lot of Shotguns were made in small, individual lots, by families working together, each supplier contributing various parts, etc to be assembled into a complete Gun. The Final "maker" usually placed their name on the gun; Very few families made a gun from all the raw materials right through to the finished article, but of course the bigger "industrial" makers do so.( Beretta, Bettinsoli, Pedrazzi etc, etc).

These "family" or "artisan" makes supplied the general Italian shotgun market for over a century, and they were also exported by "co-operatives" specifically formed to market the guns out of Italy.
 
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