POTD: Nimschke-Engraved Brown Ballard – A Scarce Maker
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have a Ballard single shot that checks two big boxes at once. This one was built by the Brown Manufacturing Company between about 1869 and 1873 and engraved by Louis D. Nimschke, who signed it “L.D.N.” under the receiver.
The Ballard had a busy life. Charles H. Ballard patented the design in Worcester, Massachusetts, in November 1861, and the rifle bounced through a string of makers: Ball & Williams, Dwight Chapin, R. Ball & Co., Merrimack Arms, Brown, and finally Marlin, which built over 40,000 of them. Brown made the fewest of any maker, only about 1,700, and this rifle is noted as the lowest known serial number on a Brown-made Ballard.
Nimschke is the other half of the story. Born in Germany in 1832, he came to the U.S. in 1853 and spent nearly his whole career in New York City as an independent engraver, working for over 100 gun makers and gunsmiths. The Metropolitan Museum of Art now holds his workbook, packed with hundreds of inked “pulls” taken straight off guns he engraved. On this rifle he covered about three-quarters of the action in vine-like scroll on a beaded background, with some vines ending in flower petals, one of his trademarks.
Mechanically, the neat part is a crosswise takedown wedge through the receiver, something you rarely see, which lets you swap barrels in a hurry. It comes with its original 32 caliber barrel plus 38 and 44 caliber barrels, all in a fitted case. I would call it a whole hunting battery in one box.
Most of our POTDs utilize images from our friends at Rock Island Auction Company, the premier firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse their current auctions – who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!
“L.D. Nimschke Master Engraved Brown Manufacturing Ballard Rifle.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4097/3081/ld-nimschke-master-engraved-brown-manufacturing-ballard-rifle. Accessed 29 Sept. 2026.
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