just remember "More information than others" is often the baffling with BS instead of dazzling with brilliance. Smarmy fluff in the description of the gun does nothing, tells nothing . wall thickness, chamber length, choke constrictions etc. do.
when its states 100% case coloring on a vintage gun to the uninitiated sounds like its original. is that misleading? Any gun I sell, if it has been refinished or re-blued or re cased, I specify refinished wood. etc or say original finish. otherwise it is automatically assumed to be a refinish. but to the tyro double gun buyer, they don't know and get duped.
Now a dealer /deal gone bad tale from about 6-7 years ago.
I get a call from a dealer who knows I like Foxes. He says he came into several guns he knows I am long for. I bought all three at once, based on 3 day inspection privileges. Or so I thought. #1 was a A 100% original Sterlingworth as he put it that only ;lacks hanging tags to look like it just came out of the factory. Only problem was that the wood was completely refinished, nicely but the color was way too red. I called him on that and he said it was original and for me to prove otherwise; that he described it accurately and that it was a done deal. #2 was an AE in exquisite condition with 26 original barrels he says. We settle on a price. I get the AE and I pull it out of the box and look at the muzzles and the barrels look cut. And not just because the muzzles werent touching. You could see marks on the muzzles from where they were cut and not completely polished. And the chokes were only about of an inch taper. I measured them with my dial indicator bore gauge. . Prior to the purchase I even asked how long the forcing cones were. He said the chokes were opened up and therefore a little shorter. He said a letter was coming and if it didnt letter he would refund my money. I reluctantly agreed to keep it as long as I got my money back if they were cut. After months of calls and excuses form him (you would have thought he would have called me) he finally said that the letter came and they were originally 28. Then the excuses about how he was short money so he couldnt refund me right now but if I sent it back he would sell on consignment blah blah blah. I told him no way, honor your commitment. It took a while but he finally paid, about 6 months after the initial sale and inspection by me. This was even though he said 3 day inspection. At the same time I received a CE that arrived with a cracked stock. I called him immediately. Sent photos. He said he was only acing as a broker and would not refund the money and I couldnt send it back. He said he was only acting as a broker for that one and that I made the deal with the seller who wasnt hi. He never mentioned any of that. During our discussion on the gun. He offered the guns for sale. I spoke to no one but him. FEDEDX would only cover 1000.00 even though it was insured for full amount. The seller refused to take it back. He then offered to have it repaired at no cost to me. Then he reneged on that. Said he never said so even though I have all of the emails and sent them back to him. Then he tap danced on that one . I ended up getting the 1000.00 form FEDEX for the insurance and that was it. I would never do business with this dealer ever again no matter what he had.
Did I screw up and let my desire outweigh my prudence? Yes. But that doesnt take away the fact that this dealer engaged fraudulent business activities. Yeah, someone will say, you should have sued him. Right, no deep pockets here. I learned my lesson the hard way. But I will never buy a gun from him again, and I occasionally look at his adds to see the tripe and BS for a laugh to remind myself of what I did.
