I set this message to Toby and I'll make a separate line on this topic:
This is a crude example of what I'm thinking. I've got four data points for Purdey Patent 1104 use numbers bought by Reilly. I have dated the guns theoretically. 1104 was taken out in 1863 and presumably became public in 1877. Here is the graph based on those four data points of when Purdey use numbers should appear....
if everyone who had a firmly dated gun of whatever brand/name would post the use number (along with the date of the gun), the graph could be refined and we could date guns by the patent use numbers with near certainty:
If someone in UK could mobilize GUNSTAR, GUNTRADER, and the major auction houses to simply look at the guns and record the data....a lot of this UK gun history could be recreated. (maybe it's redundant...perhaps records exist but as I said on the Reilly line, Purdey can't respond on who paid what and when for Patent 1104 - the records are literally locked up).
