Pictured above: Ken Hunt receiving his awards.

On Tuesday, the 20th of June, Mr Ken Hunt was presented with his Master Gunmakers Certificate and his Lifetime Achievement Award. The Master and Bill Blacker presented Ken Hunt with his awards, both of which he really appreciated.

The attention to detail and thought put into the awards and the certificates, and the recognition of the great talent Ken has amassed over the years was not lost on the Master. Ken was particularly complementary about the calligraphy; it takes a lot to impress Ken, especially when it comes to artistic forms given his worldwide reputation for engraving. Interestingly, he is currently teaching himself the art of calligraphy; and it won’t be too long to master yet another art form considering his lifetimes work!

Ken has, without doubt, reached the pinnacle of his craft within the field of engraving and pattern design and is internationally recognised, especially in the USA. Guns engraved with by him are highly sort after and prized possessions.

Pictured above: Ken Hunt receiving his award
from The Master and Bill Blacker

Ken left school at 15 years old and managed to get an apprenticeship with Henry ‘Harry’ Albert Kell (1880-1958), another famous engraver. After several years training with Kell, Ken was offered a position at Purdey, which he keenly took up. Ken told the Master and Bill that when he was a young engraver at Purdey, the team of engravers at Purdey were given guns to engrave with full rose and scroll, and they were expected to complete the job in 37 hours, and a deep cut relief engraved gun in 100hrs! It does not seem possible today to think that such wonderful engraving could be achieved in such little time!

Ken has placed a few pictures of his awards on his social media platforms, which has gained many likes and has generated several positive comments from his followers, his followers exceed 19,000 on Instagram.

He has also placed the images on an American site with similar positive responses. Clearly, the gun trade will see these awards as not only deserving but positively for the gun trade and our Livery as a whole