Rob, unless someone were to access the company records on the gun in question--and I think a fairly small percentage of buyers would do so on a Parker Trojan or V Grade, LC or Ithaca Field Grade, or Fox Sterlingworth (that would be the vast majority of American classic "using guns")--they probably wouldn't spot altered chokes other than on the Ithaca, which is the only one on which factory chokes would have been marked. Were I selling one of those, I'd tell the buyer what the chokes are, but I'm not sure I'd volunteer that I had them opened. Those guns are shooters, and to me, 100% originality should only be an issue in an extremely high condition example: your elusive "closet queen" collector gun. Personally, if I'm the buyer, I'm more interested in a "using gun" on which the chokes HAVE been altered, if the job was well done and if the original chokes were as tight as they are on most American classics. Saves me the cost of having it done.
When we're talking American vs British guns, there's also another distinction we need to make: Percentagewise, there are many times more British "bests" on the market than there are their American equivalent (the very highest grades made by Parker, Ithaca, Elsie, Fox, etc). And because there are so few true "American bests", and because more of them are regarded strictly as collectors' pieces rather than a gun one would take out and shoot, then especially in the case of those high grade American guns, I agree that original, unaltered condition is extremely important. Your average Purdey, Boss or H&H Royal is far more likely to have been shot one heck of a lot (driven shoots, especially back "in they day", involved a bunch of shooting) than a very high grade American classic.
Last edited by L. Brown; 10/22/09 04:37 PM.
