Krieghoff's Sideplated K-20/S

There is currently a rage for spiffily engraved guns. A glance through the pages of your favorite magazine will confirm this. Yet some guns provide a better platform for ornamentation than others. The horizontal panels of Krieghoff’s over/unders long have presented the perfect canvas for game scenes, but now for only the second time the German firm has added spacious sideplates to one of its K-20s that have extended the area for engraved tableaus to mural proportions.

For the right side of the K-20/S, German engraver Jana Shilling chose a trio of cartouches filled with wildfowl familiar to every duck hunter: A pintail roosts in the bar of the action, a wood duck springs from the rear of the sideplate, and in a large scene in the middle three mallards take flight. On the left side upland birds are represented: A ruffed grouse is in the bar of the action, a bobwhite quail is in the rear and airborne pheasants are the centerpiece.

The top latch is engraved with six large golden eggs filling a grass nest, and a Labrador retrieving a pheasant is featured on the bottom of the action. Large scroll and gold inlays complement the scenes. Final stock and barrel configurations remain the client’s choice.

Uniquely engraved one-offs always have commanded a premium, and the K-20/S is priced at $140,000. But one cannot help wondering if Krieghoff would be willing to create another if someone desired personalized custom engraving . . . .