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My father-inlaw passed away a little more than 1 year ago. His father and family were from Minnesota and great bird hunters. He left an L C Smith 12 gauge 3E two barrel set. The barrels are 30" choked open/open and a 26" choked improved/full. He loaned the gun to a good friend in the 60's and while in his care and the trunk of his car it was in a garage fire. The friend was beside himself and had the gun restored at Pachmeyers in LA. Each barrel has its own forearm. The safety slides both forward and rearward from safe and is not automatic.
The question is; What is a fair value for the gun? It is not for sale but one heir will buy the others out.

Tough question--- an unrestored 12 3E in that condition, being a two-barrel set would be worth north of 4.5K. The questions---( I can't tell from the pics)---1) was the restoration done correctly, 2) do all numbers match and are both barrels and forends numbered to the frame, and 3) having been in a fire, do both sets of barrels ring?
PM me with more detailed pics and answers to the above, and I'll try to assist you further.
EDIT---- I didn't look at the last two pics before posting the above---- it's a non-matching two barrel set and the Monte Carlo butt, forend, and pad are incorrect. My estimate is 2.5-3K tops as a shooter subject to 3) above.

There was no new cc put on the gun. The stock is new. The barrels ring. I don't beleive the 26" barrels were involved in the fire but it has new forend wood. I wish we could find the work order.

Can you further explain the non matching barrels?

The one for-end in the picture, for it to be from a 3E it would have the ebony tip. The one set of barrels is from a 00 gr. and it looks like someone stamped the serial number to match the original set. The Nitro Steel barrels which came with the gun date it to 1902.
The design checkering on the stock looks right except for the Monte Carlo, which you could order, but not sure if that early.

As for price, the only way is to have it appraised by a good double gun person, one who knows L.C. Smiths. To try and tell you what it is worth is like trying to tell you what your car is worth, condition is everything, original is best, reconditioned in my opinion is 70% original condition.

With a serial # of 9836 when was the gun made?

1902. In a 1906 catalog a Monte Carlo stock is mentioned. Maybe someone has a 1902 or 1903 catalong to verify if it was available then.

The 00 Gr. with was the lowest priced hammerless gun L.C. Smith sold and they all came with Armor Steel barrels (but never say never). With the ejectors it added $15.00 back then.

The top last picture shows the Armor Steel barrels and the Gr. 3 below. There was a presious metal (silver) connecting the rib to the extension rib on Gr.3's, the higher grades had gold, but I don't know offhand at what grade it started without looking it up.

For a family buy-out situation, I would suggest $4k as a fair price; that would enable the keeper to pay $2k. Nice round number.

In looking up the serial# on the LC Smith site it shows various dates for this serial #.

Monte Carlo combed stocks were avaiable on LC Smith guns prior to 1900; and, if he sees this post, Dr. Drew may post a pic of an early A-1 grade with original Monte Carlo stock.
As to the serial number, some serial number blocks were duplicated during Smith gun production; but there is only one sn block for pre-1913 ejector guns, so the date provided above is correct.