Wonder WHEN Lowaller's Stevens (or copy?) was made. Got to be the most gussied-up Favorite I've ever seen!
Doesn't actually ascend to the "gilding a lily" level; more like gilding a dandelion, IMO. (Frank de Haas would have had a couple of choice things to say about it, for sure. But he WOULD have put it in his books as an example of what you COULD do with an ole Favorite if you had the desire and the $$$).
I also wonder why a Favorite? Was this perhaps done for some Ami who had a boyhood crush on that rifle? Certainly there were German actions that could be easily sourced that were easier to get than a Stevens, weren't there?
In general, I wonder why these American actions (lowalls and now a Stevens) were being used for German custom jobs? Were they done for Americans specifically, or for resale by an American firm that contracted for them? Were the American actions cheaper than equivalent German or Belgian actions that the German smiths could source? (Find that kinda hard to believe, as much as I admire JB's first design).
Were they made in some period when the sources of European actions to German smiths were disrupted by war or treaty? Puzzles me.
