Hi Pete!
Actually â?? you are asking a number of excellent questions in a very short post! If that was your intent â?? terrific job on researching exactly the correct questions to ask. Let me start by answering a few, and then â??drawing back the curtainâ? a bit on the back-frame stamps. If you have other questions â?? please post back, OK?
First â?? the picture in Mr. Gibsonâ??s book with the rounded â??Gâ? is correct. From the authorâ??s notes, it is on a correct serial numbered frame that falls within the correct serial range. Your question was actually discussed privately amongst some HK collectors in private not long ago, and I believe that I know itâ??s current owner. Anyway â?? in short, that HK has since been authenticated.
However â?? that raises a number of questions, as to the variations on the back-framed stamped HK reworks. Without giving anyone insight as to how to better replicate a back-frame stamp, there are a couple of identifying features â?? like I noted above (the â??Eâ?, the base line of the â??Oâ?, etc.). Spurious attempts are, well â??differentâ?, without going into detail. (There are a LOT of fakes out there for this variation, as they were relatively easy to try to re-create, so buyer beware!).
In creating the stamp, we (I, and a few HK collectors, as itâ??s been my theory weâ??ve been discussing) currently believe that there were two stamps â?? a single â??SUHLâ? stamp - and anther die carrier stamp with KRIEGHOFF. For example, if you look on a few HK back-frame stamped HK reworks, you may notice a slight â??|â? to the left of the â??Kâ?, which would be the carrier itself, and measured on stamp to stamp, will notice a slight change as the individual dies would shift in the carrier. This might also account for the â??Fâ?, as after the initial strike from the dies in the carrier, an individual â??Fâ? die would appear to be applied, as the last die â??Fâ? strike would be â??lightâ?.
As well, that would account for the appearance of the mis-aligned characters at the baseline.
Anyway â?? this is a very short answer to a long question. BUT â?? a great question nonetheless, Pete!
Hope this helps!
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