Photo by Carly Pearson
Engraver Marcus Hunt works on a knife at Glendo. Hunt was Glendo's first artist in residence.
Marcus Hunt considers his father the real master engraver. He may be right. But Hunt is no slouch.
How good is he? Good enough to be commissioned by Eric Clapton to engrave a pair of shotguns.
How good? Good enough to be hired by the Queen’s own armorer — that’s as in Queen Elizabeth II — to engrave a scabbard for a World War II hero.
How good? Good enough to spend two weeks at Glendo as an artist in residence, including a week in the research and design area, working with an engraving tool that hasn’t been commercially released yet.
That good.
“Many a time I considered taking a different career path,” said Hunt, an Englishman who lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. “But I enjoy the finished products. What they have is something totally unique. Even if I engrave a matched pair of guns, they will never be exactly the same.”
Maybe that’s the way to describe Hunt and his father Ken: a matched pair with slight variations. Ken Hunt, a recognized grandmaster, has been called “the king of engravers” by BusinessWeek. Now in his 70s, he began his apprenticeship at 15 and dedicated much of his life to becoming continually better. These days, Ken Hunt makes only four guns a year, but can command $90,000 a gun.
Photo by Carly Pearson
Engraver Marcus Hunt has engraved items for celebrities like Eric Clapton and was commissioned for an engraving by the Queen of England.
As mentioned, his son hasn’t exactly done badly, either. But Hunt had a little more indecision before adopting his father’s way of life. He considered joining the Army as a helicopter pilot, but the chances of getting that spot seemed too hit and miss. Then he decided to train as a radio technician — but a month before it would have become final, he held back again.
Finally, he asked the question: “Dad, can I become your apprentice?”
“I think he was secretly over the moon,” Hunt said.
There was a lot to learn: the careful touch, the special inlay techniques his father knew so well. But the most important thing he absorbed was the passion. That, Hunt said, is what separates the good engravers from the great ones.
“I think, at the end of the day, it’s a passion for the craft and a dedication above the call of duty,” Hunt said. “It becomes more than a job. It’s a vocation, a love, a constant striving to get better.”
And constant means just that. Hunt could remember his father working from 9 or 10 in the morning until 2 a.m. the next day.
“My family sacrificed a lot for him to get where he is today,” Hunt said. “It wasn’t as if we got to play a game of soccer with him very often.”
But that dedication can pay off handsomely. Between the skill,the reputation and the contacts Hunt developed over time, he was perfectly positioned when Buckingham Palace came calling.
The occasion was the honoring of a Maori soldier who had been a World War II hero but never received the Victoria Cross. The award had since been retired for WWII veterans but the Queen wanted to honor him with something special — a sword with a custom-engraved scabbard.
It had to be finished in three weeks.
“The new queen’s armorer was in a bit of a panic, because he couldn’t find an engraver on such short notice,” Hunt said. “So he asked the old one, ‘Do you have any ideas?’”
He did. The old armorer had had a knife engraved by Hunt and didn’t hesitate to recommend him. Three weeks is a little faster than Hunt usually works, but the Queen is the Queen.
“Everything had to go through the embassies, to make sure the wording was so correct,” Hunt said. “I couldn’t go and change anything. He was a lance sergeant and usually you inscribe that as L/Sgt. But no. I had to spell the whole thing out in longhand.”
Still, the job was finished, on time and to Her Majesty’s specifications.
“I think she was pleased with it,” he said.
The Clapton job, meanwhile, let him have a little fun. It started when a gunmaking company asked him to engrave a pair of 20-gauge shotguns for the rock star. But, the gunmaker added, Clapton wanted to meet the engraver.
“I said ‘Tell him I’m honored, but I don’t turn out for just anyone,’” Hunt said, eyes gleaming. “When I got there, he declared ‘Oh, I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!’”
At first, he said, Clapton just wanted ordinary game scenes. Hunt wanted to push for something more. They finally agreed to depict Clapton shooting and fishing at a favorite river.
“It took many hours,” Hunt said. “He kept saying, ‘When’s it ready?’ I kept saying ‘It’ll be ready when it’s ready.”
The pieces, when finished, captured Clapton with almost photographic accuracy.
“It was quite a fun process,” Hunt said. “But not easy.”
Hunt uses powered engravers these days, but a frustration for him has always been the foot pedal used to vary the speed. Not only does it give him backaches, he said, but it puts an unnecessary middleman into something that should only need the brain and the hands.
“It’s unnatural,” he said.
He complained about that to D.J. Glaser, the president of Glendo, last year. So this year, during a visit to Emporia that ended Saturday, Hunt found himself trying out an engraver that responded to hand pressure alone.
“D.J.’s just a genius when it comes to the engineering side of this,” Hunt said as he worked. “This is the answer to a lot of engravers’ prayers. ... I think it’ll revolutionize engraving as we know it.”
He should know. Like his father before him, he’s become dedicated to his craft. By now, Hunt can’t imagine doing anything else.
“At the end of the day, there’s a certain freedom that I’d never have if I had to answer to a boss,” he said.
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