"Rocketman," your mathematical formulations have been a source of amazement and interest for some time. Would that it is possible to reduce what is an emotive decision to the product of insensate numbers. I think the closest one can come to such reduction is the concept of 'utility' as often used in labor economics courses, which was also a subject of personal fascination at university. The concept asserts that a rational or reasonable person can be persuaded to do something, or not, based on the degree and effect of monetary persuasion on a so-called reasonable man.
An example: Would I prefer to earn another several hour's overtime pay or take the new blond co-worker to an evening concert in lieu of earning more money by working the available overtime, which selection process is overlaid with my company's desire to understand and thereby formulate what level of persuasion would cause me to choose either scenario, or define for management the 'utility' of the choices presented that will tip my decision one way or the other. If successfully developed for management, this formula would allow them to control employee work behavior, and in this example, employee availability and desire for overtime work. In other words, how much more per hour would management need to pay me to select work over a date with an attractive blond? After much diligent research on 'utility,' what we determined is that whenever the emotive factor was mixed with our sterile, lifeless though earnest mathematical calculations, we produced no consistent results, or those that were, for all intents and purposes, rather meaningless and inapplicable to reliably prognosticating actual or future events. I suppose we could have employed some known statistical theories to predict likely outcomes, but the class ended and the lot of us dispersed to carry on other endeavors, elsewhere.
Here we have an antique E. J. Churchill gun in need of some sensitive restoration due to normal and expected wear, although it is nonetheless attractive to me and surely others also. Let us presume the gun is on offer, and we will further posit that we have seen an antique Holland & Holland, of similar condition and built on the Scott action, also on offer. No price is given for either, but from experience or after considering outside advice, it is thought their respective value is close to the same.
Which do I prefer, or do I not prefer one over the other, or perhaps do not care for either gun? If I decide I must choose between them, I proceed to look for flaws and attributes possessed by each and decide which are important to me and will thus become eventually determinative. These choices are in essence emotive in nature and not really quantitative, or would be unless all interested parties possessed equal emotions and would then take the same emotive-based decisions.
Value is in the eyes of the beholder. What I would pay for a gun is likely not the same as others would pay. Historically, I have done this many times, in order to secure the object of my desire and deny it to others, even when I could have paid much less if I had chosen to simply take my chances. So what shall we do in reasonably determining a monetary value, say, with so many emotional variables involved? Well, we have the earlier suggested value numbers, based subjectively on recent experience and personal reaction to a particular gun, as well as the admixture of objective observations concerning the gun.
My market value estimate, if memory serves, was $4,000-5,500. You derived your $4,652 figure by complex calculation. The midpoint ($4,000 + $5,500 = $9,500 / 2 = $4,750) for my value range is $4,750, which is plus some $100 when compared to the aforementioned $4,652 product; a negligible difference. Two very different approaches have yielded nearly the same result. Most interesting and even perhaps intriguing.
Regards,
Edwardian
