I have beautiful colt saa 1st gen engraved by a r alpen can anyone give me info on the engraver.I know he worked for ithaca thank you

albert ciardi jr
7/13/2011 12:01:15 PM

Albert,

Your gun was apparently engraved by Ralph Alpen. Aside from doing engraving for Ithaca, Alpen also headed the short lived Mossberg custom shop in the 1970s.

Alpen became interested in engraving while in the service in WWII and after the war received training as a jewelry engraver in Cincinnati,Ohio where he worked for several years. He came into gun engraving later in his career.

One distinguishing aspect of Alpen's work is that when he inlayed gold wire into the spiral backbones of scrollwork, he usually went over the gold lines with a wriggle tool.

If you wish to learn more about the tools and techniques of hand engravers visit my illustrated glossary at http://www.engravingglossary.com/

Regards,

CRB

C. Bleile
7/15/2011 12:06:52 AM

thank you for your information

albert ciardi jr
7/18/2011 2:59:07 PM

Hello Albert,

I spoke with Mr. Alpen a few months back after 2 years of attempting to trail him down. I have two 3 and 4 digit Ruger #1's that are unfired and engraved by Ralph Alpen. These are some of my notes of our discussion.

Worked at Ithaca Gun Company from 1967-1971 training with Bill McGraw
Engraved at Franklin Mint after Ithaca until 2005 (he could not remember how many years he worked there)
Engraved 3 Ithaca shotguns for the Apollo 8 astronauts of their ship circling the moon.
Was in the Navy during Korea where he started learning engraving with a pocket knife on lighters
Born on July 18th, 1930
Married, has 6 children, 10 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren

Hope they help,
Greg

Gregory Hammell
9/16/2011 10:47:50 AM