DANVILLE -- A 24-carat gold rifle fully engraved with Montour County history, including images of a Dinkey train and a T-rail, will be a featured commemorative piece of this year's Iron Heritage Festival.
The piece, a modern style Henry Big Boy .45-caliber Long Colt rifle, arrived in Danville this week after five months of work at Rocky Mountain Firearms Inc., Fort Collins, Col., led by Brian Nesby, who made a similar commemorative rifle for Columbia County five years ago.
The $3,600 original proof rifle will be raffled off during the heritage festival July 17-20. Nesby's crew also produced 10 additional numbered rifles, valued at $3,339, that are available for sale to the public.
"I typically do a lot of the research myself, but in this case, Sis (Hause) did most of it," Nesby said. "We had a lot of history to choose from. If I could fit 50 good pictures on it, I could. Unfortunately, there is only room for about 15 images. We tried to spread the history out geographically for the county, so every area was involved."
Among the images include the George F. Geisinger Memorial Hospital (circa 1915), Civil War Monument (circa 1909), Thomas Beaver Free Library (circa 1888), Montour Iron Works (circa 1844) and the country's first ever T-rail (Oct. 8, 1845).
Sis and her husband Bill Hause, of Danville, photographed several images for Nesby, including the Jane DeLong Memorial Hall in Washingtonville.
"It took us four to five months to build the proof (rifle), because of all of the work that goes into it," Nesby said.
Nesby said an artist drew the images for the engraver from the photographs. A lot of discussion went into where each image was going to be engraved, Nesby said.
"You have to really know if it's going to fit and how much detail may be lost in one spot or another," Nesby said. "It does take some time to get everything figured out just right."
The images are engraved on the butt stock, receiver and butt plate as the rest of the rifle is 24-carat gold, including inside the barrel.
According to Nesby, the Henry Big Boy rifle was specifically chosen because of its own heritage.
Rocky Mountain Firearms has been doing historical engraving for the past seven years, according to Nesby.
In addition to guns, the company makes knives and stainless steel platters. Nesby said the crew recently completed a commemorative series for the 30th Anniversary of the wreck of S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald (Nov. 10, 1975).
For the Iron Heritage Festival, the festival committee is raffling off the original proof rifle. Tickets, which are limited in supply, are $10 a piece and can be purchased from committee members or at the Iron Heritage Company Store, 316 Mill St. The drawing will be July 19 in front of the store.
The remaining 10 rifles can be purchased from Nesby, who said he will make a donation on each sale to the IHF. Nesby will remain in the area this weekend and will showcase the proof gun and talk about how the rifle was made from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the company store. For information, call the store at 275-6700.
E-mail comments to jnorth@dailyitem.com
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Rifle bears Danville images
Festival's raffle prize valued at $3,600
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