Beschreibung:

.480 bore diameter, 42" octagonal barrel, German silver blade front sight, very fancy notched rear barrel sight finish in a polished blue. The barrel is gold inlaid with leaves and vines at the breech, front muzzle has gold lines around the muzzle, just behind the front sight is vine and leaves. All screw heads are highly chiseled and finished in highly polished blue finish. The lock is deeply chiseled with vines and leaves. Sterling silver furniture, the stock is incised carved with line and borders. The stock has silver wire inlays, four-piece highly engraved patchbox with the name in a gold plaque "Douglas E Joy." Engraved bone inlays on the wrist and cheek piece. The stock has a fancy high grade maple with high gloss finish. Beautifully made and equally ordained case with silver name plaque, top of the lid with silver wire inlays. The inside is form fitted to the rifle and tools. With maker's label. It took 3 years to make a rifle of this quality. It is fit for a king and made by American Custom Gun Maker's Guild member Hugh Toenjes. The Surprise of a Lifetime By Hugh Toenjes Under one's bed is a good place to hide "dust bunnies" but not the usual place to store expensive firearms, let alone one that has an estimated value between $75,000 - $100,000. Imagine the shock then, when a daughter cleaned out her deceased father's apartment and found exactly that! This is the rest of a tale that begin in 1979 when a gun collector and business man attended a gun show where I was exhibiting my latest work as a fledgling muzzle loading gun maker. Along with my display of longrifles was a rifle I had made form my son's 12th birthday. His rifle was inspired by the work of Nicholas Hawk of Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. It was dark in color with silver mountings, wire inlay and engraving. During the show, the rifle caught the eye of Douglas Joy, a successful local business man with an extensive collection of long guns. A short time later a man riding a loud Harley Davidson motorcycle arrives at my shop wearing a black leather jacket, motorcycle boots, and silver skull rings on his fingers. He introduced himself as Doug Joy and brought with a coffee table book picturing many guns from the 18th and 19th centuries that had been made for wealthy patrons and kings. Shown were guns hammered full of silver, gold, jewels and engraved to the nines. He opened the book to a page showing a particularly ornate European gun and said, "I want you to make on of these to me". I was stunned! He added that the price of the project would not be an issue. This is every gun maker's dream, or so I thought. Then reality struck and I informed Mr. Joy that I only built American long rifles, expecting that would be the end of the discussion right then and there. "Well then, build me a fancy longrifle and I want lots of silver, gold and precious stones on it"! Once again, I was taken back. Naturally, I was a bit wary but judging by his appearance saying "no" might not be an easy option. I considered the project with anxiety as the magnitude of the project flashed across the screen of my mind. A lot of skills associated with the venture I had yet to learn. The next year I became very acquainted with "Doug" Joy as we hammered out the details of his elaborate longrifle. It would be maple stocked Lehigh County style similar to my son's rifle with a 50 caliber hand rifled barrel. With his handsome down payment, I was able to order most of the materials along with a copy of J.B. Meek's "The Art of Engraving", which proved a valuable resource. As 1981 began, it was time to start work on the fancy longrifle. I already had several curly maple stock blanks on hand from Pennsylvania and I decided to make the lock from Bud Siler castings. The barrel would be made from a blank that I would rifle myself. At the time, I was just perfecting my own style of deep oval bottom rifling which offered excellent accuracy and eliminated the need to wipe between shots. As work progressed on