Those beat up guns are my favourites. I don’t leave them beat up. But it intrigues me, as it seems to the OP, what these guns have been through. What happened to them? What were their owners thinking?

My favorite are three guns I bought from a couple in Idaho. They were crossing 80 and had decided to end their hunting career and concentrate on golf and the grandkids. They were originally from back east…..upstate NY in what I like to call gun country. And while they had used them for 45 years in Idaho, the guns had been in the family for decades before that. Two of the three guns needed immediate work….the third was just well used but well taken care of. There’s more but I won’t bore anyone. It’s the history (good and bad) that makes them interesting.

I think it’s more interesting to research and speculate about a gun that wears it’s history than one that has been kept pristine in the cabinet for 90 to 120 years. Those guns bore me.