I do understand that when it comes well manufactured guns especially the top line makers we would like to have everything looking as perfect as possible. But there is always a but isnt there, so the gun in the pictures is one of the top guns in my collection and as you can see the screw heads are as wide as it is possible to get in fact you could lose a turn screw in the slots not to mention the canyon echo. Now it would be an easy thing to have pristine replacements made but this is possibly where my thinking differs from you folks on the other side of the pond. If I replace the screws I feel that I would be taking away some of the guns history and character, well it has been in continuous use more or less a hundred and fifty years as well as the evidence that the screws where butchered to accept non armours turn screws. Sometimes warts and all may not be a bad thing, also I feel I will miss looking down at the action top screw when I use the gun and my wondering what the reasoning behind the screw slots destruction was.
I personally don't think that evidence of incompetent "gunsmithing", such as butchered screw slots, can be remotely considered to be in the same category as honest wear. Honest wear is just that,and adds character to the gun, but damaged slots, buffed frames and other things of that nature are nothing more than evidence that someone touched the gun who should not have been allowed to do so, and should be corrected.
As far as what makes a gun "high quality", one must look below the surface. The quality of the inletting, of the internal metal surfaces, of the fits, these are some of the things that determine the quality. A Purdey or Westley Richards, in the white with no engraving, is still a best gun. It's not the ornamentation that makes it so.
