Slick, the 3 pics you posted are great but could you put up some side views of the action, with and without barrels assembled, a top view assembled and a bottom view of the action?
First, I
am not an expert on European shotguns but they really interest me and I like learning more about them. I have some references. Using these and some high-school French translation, here is what I suspect.
J. Faisant Arm Eleeuf roughly translates to J. Faisant Arms Maker.
Importe De Belgique means Imported from Belgium
Et Breakers, Et meaning "at" is questionable but implies Breakers is a place.
Herstal Liege
is a place.
Web searches did not reveal very much.
Prior to WWII Liege Belgium was known as one of Europes largest makers of arms. Without a doubt, FN and Browning were the best known but there were many other smaller, lesser known makers. Thousands of cheap and poorly made single and double barreled shotguns from Belgium were imported into the US before 1940 by the H. & D. Folsom Arms Company of New York City. There were over 200 names used on Folsom guns alone, in addition to others. I cannot say that J. Faisant is one of those and based on what I can see in the photos I would not say this is one of Belgium's worst.
Its important to understand that
not all of the Liege gunmakers, other than FN, made junk! It is just that most of the pre-war imports were. Now the question is, how did this 16 gauge you have get here? It is quite possible that this gun was made in a small shop and is a very fine gun that went to some European sportsman who was unlucky enough to have his prized firearm 'liberated' by American G.I.s as they crossed Europe. I have seen a good number of really nice Belgium made firearms that came here that way and this could be the case here.
So it would be wise to establish what history you can of this guns American ownership.
Finally, the folks that hang around Double Gun Journal, a very fine quarterly publication, know far more than I do. Try this link;
http://www.doublegunshop.com/doublegunjournal.htm
Good luck on your quest and keep us posted on what you find!
