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Thanks for the photos. Nice case. Very unusual arrangement. When I first saw it and asked for pictures I was thinking it appeared to be a hinged case. This one all the more interesting.

first, i want to thank fab500 for his post last march, with the link to the grade 6re, and numerous pictures that show this rare variant of the ideal....a gun i would have never expected to see - much less buy. i am now awaiting receipt of such a gun - that i won in the recent morphy on-line-only auction, that ended a week ago....https://auctions.morphyauctions.com/LotDetail.aspx?inventoryid=598253.

the auction featured mostly "less desirable" items, and was a pretty streamlined process with few photos, and brief descriptions. i requested additional information, and evidently got the guy who had cataloged the gun, and authored that brilliant description....i asked for customary useful measurements, and pictures of the proofs, and close-ups of all sides of the action. couple of days later i received 9 clear and useful photos, and some pretty screwball information - "the chambers were longer than 3 1/2 inches", and chokes were cylinder & cylinder. the photos showed a very clean gun, and the proofs are "fusil ideal perfection", double proofed with powder type S, chambers marked "7" (but photographed so that you could not see if it might be additionally stamped), 18.2mm bores, stamped with the mdf under the crown - for exceptional/special order guns, and marked with the stereotypical "choke and demi-choke" stamps that seem to be the default choking on most manu guns.

i then asked for clarification regarding the "longer than 3 1/2" chambers, general conditions of the bores, and whether forcing cones were present. and, i posed a specific question - do the "bores appear to have been mutilated". here it got really screwy, on the morning of the closing day of the auction, i get a response; "when these bores were reamed out they were not rechambered properly. the bores are bright and smooth....but the chokes are gone, and the chambers are too long for shotgun shells to be safely used."

at this point, i chastised the fellow for marketing a gun with a pitiful description that would seem to say the gun is useable - when, in fact, it is not....and i "demanded" bore diameters, and mwt numbers - and asked if i could withdraw my bid. evidently this alarmed the fellow, and he carried my emails to another person (who did not choose to provide his name)....but did tell me that expert #1, had measured the gun assuming that it was a 16ga (with the barrels clearly marked 12ga).
thus, his chamber gauge was swallowed up in the bores, the forcing cones were mutilated, and the chokes were off the scales. this responder stated that "another cataloger had remeasured the gun to ensure they were correct and listed the following; barrel wall thickness, left .027, right .028
internal bore diameter, left .722, right .729
chokes, left .042, right .042
chambers, 2 3/4"
drop at comb, 1 1/2"
drop at heel, 2 1/4"
length of pull, 14 3/4" bores bright and smooth, sorry for the delay and miscommunication."

i decided that it was not a lost cause, and preceded to bid the gun up to the sale price shown on the auction page. certainly hoping the gun is as pictured, and the second "expert" was as accurate as he was sincere. if this comes to pass, i have realized that the "first expert" may well have sabotaged the sale of an exceptional shotgun - and allowed this old retired fool to get my hands on such as rarity.

best regards,

tom

in spite of the useful information recently regarding how to post pictures - i still don't have it down - so if anyone wishes to do that for me, i will gladly email the messages and photos.

and, one additional discovery, on ebay - a woman who has what she describes as a portfolio of advertising prints, put out by manu in 1909 as publicity, and she states these are not copies, but actual original prints of a fairly wide number of guns they were producing at that time.....https://www.ebay.com/itm/176348592515?mkevt=1&mkpid=0&emsid=e11304.m43.l3160&mkcid=7&ch=osgood&euid=9e2132133ae54b9592a43a3d051825e7&bu=43061095167&exe=0&ext=0&osub=-1%7E1&crd=20240425165724&segname=11304

that would be quite close to the subject gun's dob, as it's serial number appears to indicate 1908 as likely production.

That's me! I use them on field birds. I do not in the woods. Different strokes I guess.

The shotgun arrived today!
Carlos Gove Denver, Col. marked 14 ga. muzzleloader shotgun too! Birmingham proofed, so made in England, but sold through Gove's shop.

The UK sporting goods business is similar in function to that in the U.S. They have to stock what sells.

You may stumble upon some trinkets in a shop that you like, but every shop knows where the good stuff needs to go to get a turn.
There’s a fishing/shooting shop in Edinburgh that has been there for ever, ….sorry, name eludes me.
Vintage book stores with all sorts of old titles.

You can find piles of Spanish boxlocks in many gun shops, low grade hammer guns, and some SLNE’s.
Half the fun is just looking at your itinerary and calling the little sporting goods shops in the town you are visiting.

In Edinburgh, (I confess I mostly confine my time to relaxing at “Number 11”, and eating haggis at “The World’s End”) I always touch the statue of Adam Smith, like a gladiator returning to the Colosseum.

It’s a good town to explore but finding vintage firearms will be a challenge.

Note: if you travel through Dunblane, the church has magnificent wood carvings ( best I’ve seen in the western world) All done by two brothers before the Great War.

Builder, thanks.

Hinge pin free, again.



Best,
Ted

PS
Fab,

Cela fait beaucoup de canards. Trop de canards !

Might have gotten lost in my prior ramblings but all the software & security settings ARE NOT a substitute for judicious preemptive personal decisions.
If in doubt; Don't.
If totally oblivious & certain: consider darwinawards.com

BTW: NICE Gun!

I'm not normally a German gun guy but....I like it. Six pounds six makes for a useful gun afield and being a southpaw makes it interesting to me to see that cheekpiece.

Have you shot it yet?

Yeah it's the same idea. No idea if it was converted or made that way. But unlikely a pinfire cartridge would work with it.

I have a handful of these, some of which are US patents.


I did a short article on these some time ago, focusing on the pistol cartridges. This gun had an insert that allowed it to work also with pinfire cartridges. And some had a very tapered "pin" to allow it to work in existing 12mm revolvers:

I can understand why the scalloped ones would have problems. I think I always just liked the looks of a boxlock, too. But that's just me. I don't mean to run down or ridicule someone else's admiration for certain guns. If I have I apologize for that. As I said earlier, the eye of the beholder. And I respect that. Thanks.