doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com A test of your English gun knowledge

Recently John Boyd, a member of this website, (aka Arrieta2) posted a comment about how some gun auctions knowledge of guns was not what he expected.

At about the same time as Mr. Boyd's post to this website, a friend of mine and also a member of this website sent me a link to a gun that is asserted to be a Holland & Holland hammergun listed on Gunbroker.com. I viewed the H&H gun listed several times and evaluated it versus what I read in the description of the gun at the listing on Gunbroker versus what I could clearly and plainly see of the gun in the many photos attached to the listing. I also evaluated the gun from knowledge that I have about the history of H&H and English guns in general. I also made mental notes about the gun condition and character that a prudent potential buyer might have.

Members of this website experience and expertise of evaluating English guns varies from Zero to a significant "great deal".

Mr. Boyd's comments plus other thoughts that I had about gun knowledge of sellers and buyers prompted me to decide to write this post and to offer it as a test of your skill and knowledge in evaluating an English gun.

So, "here is the deal and test". Those of you who would like to take the test view the Gunbroker listing (as posted below) and as you view the listing and the written details and observe the photos, take notes and then post a reply to this post of your opinion and what you see that you may consider different from what you read of the gun's description. I would also solicit any observations that you have of the gun that are not indicated in the written description; and lastly what questions you might pose to the seller.

I anticipate that this will be a very interesting exercise, and in the end I will post the list of what my 5-10 minute "looksee" of the gun produced.

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/789512101

I'm not an expert, but that guy has at least 3 or 4 nearly mint/new condition 19th century guns. Case colors, checkering, and bluing unworn. Weird dimensions to one of them, and I could find a lot to quibble with. Current bids are nearly peanuts.

A lot of too good to be true for me.

I'm definitely no expert and haven't looked at Hammer guns. A few things to question:

1) hinge pin does not fit correctly. The slot seems a buggered.
2) the trigger plate does not fit into the bottom of the action correctly. Maybe this is a result of the rehardening. However, I would think an H&H restoration would be better.
3) the barrels show a LP with a 7. The rest of the date is not legible. Not sure why the barrel proofs would be barely visible. If H&H redid the gun in 1992, then the barrels were done earlier.
4) if this is an H&H refurbish, where is the documentation.

What else did I miss?

Ken

There's an address problem as well I think.

If H&H made new barrels, wouldn't they put the 33 Bruton Street address on them?

Ken

BEWARE! Several years ago I purchased a Parker from Commonwealth Arsenal with a three day return policy. Upon receipt of the gun I discovered the barrel wall thickness was well below what is normally considered safe. I immediately contacted Commonwealth (via email, he would not accept phone calls) and said I was returning the gun. Rather than refund the money though the seller said he would relist it and give me whatever it sold for less 10% commission! Yes my bad�in the fine print at that time under the �Additional Terms Of Sale� tab that was the terms of a refund. Two lessons I learned: 1, always parse all of the fine print, and 2, never do business with Commonwealth Arsenal again!

No, I did not return the gun. The original barrels are way beyond safe and I have been seriously considering destroying them before someone after me should fire them. I luckily found a widowed set of barrels that were a perfect match and now reside permanently. I now have a shooter not worth half what I have in it. Really soured me.

They have 33 Bruton address, see photos 33 & 34.


However, proof marks should be metric if done in 1992, no?

After looking at the photos and reading the description, my first impression was that the description has a lot of hyperbole and questionable "facts." The gun is not restored, rather refinished and not to a very high standard, IMO. Replaced barrels always raise a flag as to use and care. 'Nuff said.

H&H is BV1. IMO, this gun is fairly graded as OQ6 - OQ7, so say OQ6.5. Current Conditiion level seems to be "Shootable but needs some repairs and refinishing or refinished with barrels or stock replaced." So, CC6. BV1-OQ6.5-CC6 = $1,672. If some wished to value the new barrels higher than that for a shooter and not a collector then they might be willing to kick the $ up a bit.

Hammer gun valuations are always a bit open as the population of hammer guns is relatively small. Need to remind ourselves that value and price are not the same thing. Value is someone's best guess whereas price is an agreement between an able seller and an able and willing buyer.

DDA

Original hardening looks nothing like that. That is a mess.

Back then did Holland and Holland even make their own guns ?

He also has a nice looking Purdey listed....too bad it was originally made for a midget.



Our lOcal X'spurt John Roberts will be along in minute to verify it's pristiness....