My questions:
1. Why in the world did the "gorilla" cut the barrels in the first place?
2. If my experience isn't unusual, why are most people so down on cut barrels? I understand the alterations severely diminished the gun's value but I buy to hunt, not collect. Not to mention, I doubt the Webley would have had any serious collector value in original configuration.
I don't think most people care about "collectability" because most of these guns are not rare by any sense of the imagination.......It is that most people do not want to buy someone elses hack job if it can be avoided, so the used market dictates a much reduced price for cut up guns. As more and more of these guns get butchered up, the price of the remaining original inventory goes up.
Example:
**Would you rather buy a nice Browning A-5, vintage 1958, Sweet Sixteen all original....or the same gun with a butchered barrel and a Poly Choke hanging off the end with a recoil pad added........?........Or is it that the buyer just doesn't care and PRICE is the only consideration.....?
**How about the same scenario with rifles......Just think of the thousands of nice rifles that were drilled and butchered for the addition of peep sights and scopes etc......like the many nice original 1886 Winchesters where "Joe da hunta" needed a peep sight on his gun, so he thought........
**Or a Sterlingworth 20 ga....one with butchered barrels/chokes/chambers and a rubber pad priced at X....Same gun with original barrels/chokes/chambers and wood.....Priced at XXXX...........
Pretty much the same with all consumer items.
Bottom line is, most of this was/is about marketing as mentioned above by Twice Barrel......fast and furious marketing.....fads, trends etc......Lyman was good at selling sights and Cutts Compensators....Poly Choke marketed heavy as well.........Pachmyer marketed heavy.....Bishop stocks marketed heavy......not to mention the conversions available for old military rifles and shotguns in the hay day of 'mail order guns'........
One owners 'improvements' that he thinks makes him a better shooter/shot are not looked at as favorable additions by others......
Just like the screw in chokes of today......some people like them, some people don't.........Some people will buy sleeved guns and some people will not......the list goes on......
Best,
