doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Bo Whoop just sold

GregSY,

The gun has been in the possession of the same family, about 1 1/2 hrs. drive from me, for roughly the past 50 years. The man who commissioned Julia's to sell it inherited it from his grandfather who bought the gun for $50. The grandfather had told the grandson that the seller initially wanted $100, but he refused to give him that much for it being that it had a broken stock, so offered $50 and bought it. It languished in a closet for all these years, until when the grandson inherited it he decided to have a new buttstock built for it. When he took it to the gunsmith he was informed what he had, not having any idea previously who Nash B. or B. Becker was. He's not much of a gun enthusiast.

JMC,

As near as we can figure, based on the information available and old letters and photos, the buttstock on the gun now is the third one. The original, which you spoke of is gone. The old broken and repaired one that accompanies the gun is not the original butt built by Fox when the gun was delivered new. Researcher (Dave Noreen) and I both believe the buttstock in the photo with the lace on pad to be most likely the broken one that accompanies the gun now. I believe the most likely explanation for the existence of the current broken buttstock is that Nash broke the original and had this one made by someone other than Fox. We both examined it closely, and even by the photos you can see that it is definitely not of the quality that the original should have been. The epoxy and brass pinned repair appears to have been done by the family who had it put up for auction, at some time in the past. Plus, it never had a pad fitted to it, as you mentioned. Thinking it to be the original, the owner commissioned another new stock built to it's exact dimensions, which was beautifully done. Nash evidently was pretty rough on his guns, as the original fore-end is battered a good bit itself, though obviously of much higher quality and workmanship than the broken buttstock.

The ivory inlay was a trademark of Burt Becker, and definitely is seen in the old photos.

Old letters and descriptions do mention the inscriptions on the barrels, exactly as they exist today.

Interestingly, and according to the previous owner, Julia's had an expert analyze the age of the bluing in the lettering on the barrels to see if it was the same age as the rest of the gun's bluing, as a means of determining if the lettering was indeed original to the barrels or had been added in an attempt to counterfeit the gun with known inscriptions. The tests obviously showed the lettering to be original to the gun.

Sorry for the long winded reply, but wanted to address the questions as best I could.

Stan,
The only thing I noticed you didn't mention was a magnaflux of the s/n area of the major pieces to see if they had been re-stamped. Was that done?

Was there an actual ivory inlay in the gun or just the recess for it. I seem to recall there was a late picture of this gun in which the inlay had fallen out, or was this on #II?

Insurance Co. I believe that the second Bo Whoop was made for 750.00 as a gift to N B. I also thought the insurance co. paid the original claim. What was the claim?,probably not more than 750.00. Most likely not worth the effort to try to recover. sfq

I wonder just how the expert analyzed the bluing? I watch every episode of CSI and I never saw that gun on there.....

It's hard to analyze a substance without destroying some of it.

Who did Grandpa pay the $50 to?

Does it sound right that Nash Buckingham would have had someone other than Fox do a half-ass restock on a gun he loved so much?

Only correct to bring it back to shooting condition and let one of the distant relatives go duck hunting with it. Kind of like TR's double rifle.

Chuck,

I don't know if that was done or not.

Miller,

The ivory inlay was indeed in place in #31088 that I saw. I remember the photo you are talking about where it appeared to be missing. Perhaps it was replaced after the photo was made, but I think that was BWII.

GregSY,

I don't know the procedure to analyze the bluing, perhaps it was just a visual determination by someone more expert in these matters than most of us. You could call Jim Julia and ask him.
Evidently the grandfather either couldn't remember the name of the person who sold it to him or he never knew. Either way, the grandson did not know. Perhaps it wasn't too important to him who the man was that sold him a broken gun with two people's names on the barrels that he had never heard of.
I don't presume to be able to answer your last question. All I have reported is information I have learned in the last few months since I examined the gun in Oct. '09. It all came from either the owner or Jim Julia, or both. Who knows why a man would have a gun restocked by other than the factory? Ever had someone tell you they could do a great job on something and then you were disappointed in the results? I have. Or, if and when Nash had this done had he begun falling on hard times? It has been reported that in his later years he had to sell off most of his guns out of need. Anyone's guess to answer that question is as good as, or better than, mine.

All I have to say is some of the men that claimed not to have adog in this race surely have been beating drums on this one

If you're referring to me, cherrybomb, I have only reported what I saw and learned. I never met the owner face to face, and do not even know his name. All answers from him came to me through a third party. After he learned the potential value of the gun he had he was afraid of theft and did not want the "world" to be able to find where he lived.

I absolutely had no dog in this hunt,and was so certain that the messenger would be crucified, as another gentleman was a couple of years ago when he reported viewing the same gun, that I chose not to even mention it until after Julia's announced having it. The only reason I said anything at all was to possibly help enlighten some of my friends on this and the Fox board who have so graciously shared their information with me over the years.

I'm sure nothing I say will convince anyone who is a skeptic anyway, and I don't really care either way. I'm not on some kind of a mission to convince anyone of anything. As Fox news says, "We report, you decide".

My theory/gut feeling is that when BoWhoop was born it had typical AHFGCo. XE-Grade wood and the Jostam Hy-Gun pad as shown in this picture from the original Derrydale edition of Ole Miss.



The tip inlay was eventually lost from the original forearm as shown in this picture.



Then, at some point in the 1930s Nash had BoWhoop restocked, including a new forearm as shown in this picture.



This is the forearm the gun still has. Whether the original XE-Grade stock for BoWhoop was broken or Nash just wanted it restocked to match the very different pitch shown on the lower gun (likely 33050) in the Derrydale picture we'll never know for sure.