GUNS Magazine March 1956 - Jeffersonian

Their muzzles plugged with clay, a set of two barrels is brazed in gas furnace which joins them at breech lumps.
doms of India are liberally sprinkled with gift sets of
Holland guns. Former King Farouk of Egypt received a
magnificent pair of double 12-bore Hollands from King
George VI in 1937 as a wedding @ft-something of a shotgun
wedding as it turned out.
Patrons of Holland & Holland are the great, wealthy and
noble from many lands. Customer names are highly confidential.
Once in writing about an obsolete black powder
express in my collection, works manager Jacobs advised
me that he would only tell me "in strict confidence that
your rifle was made for a Mr. Van- about 1890." Respecting
his confidence, I omit the name. More than that
he would not say, though the roster of satisfied customers
for the famous works includes distinguished sportsmen:
H. R. H. the Duke of Connaught, Prince Bernhard of the
Netherlands, Mohammed Ali, prime minister of Pakistan,
King Hussein of Jordan, and H. M. Bao Dai of Viet Nam.
Handicraft experience of 54 years is being lavished on a
Smith & Wesson revolver now being decorated by William
Heckford, engraving foreman, for the King of Iraq. An-
other customer who displays a Holland "Modele De Luxe,"
the creamiest of the "creme" in gun making, is the Ecole
des Arrnes at Liege. The Belgian center of gun making is .
an historic rival of the English gun trade. There, a "best
English gun" serves as the model of perfection toward
which the young gunmaking students aspire.
On the stocky shoulders of Walter Jacobs, factory manager,
rests the responsibility for the perfection of a Holland
gun. Each gun is made by hand, and the last hands each
one passes through are those of Jacobs. He has long experience
as an action fitter, and critical judgment of gun
making in all other branches of the art.
Each gun which leaves the factory, whether of the relatively
inexpensive Mauser rifle type at about 90 pounds
($2701, or a better, double rifle at £350-40 ($1200), is
personally checked by him. He knows where faults are to
be found, but rarely does he have to set aside a gun for
anything more serious than perhaps a screw-slot filed a few
thousandths too wide.
With over 30 years experience at H & H, Mr. Jacobs has
Fine wood and expert engraving grace .240 Apex Mauser
sporter which carries scope adjusted for shooter.