Let's get down to the common sense bottom of this issue. If you have an ol' crotch gun of ordinary good quality type for the period and it otherwise has no esthetic or historial or even dollar value to anyone except a predator at a gun show, then do indeed commission a proper period enhancement for it. I have some older semi-auto spring pumps and a couple shuckers which go back a good way into the Old Days of Great American cornfield hunting. These guns will have a second set of stocks made from English walnut, perhaps checkered or left plain. They may get ebony or skeleton buttplates or a combination of both. The metal will be redone in a proper period rust blue. With additional internal mods they should function as well as the high-priced spread. There is no issue of money as the "art" is what has the value to those who appreciate the particulars.
Forget the issue of money unless you don't have it (which is just one of those things) and forgo the matter of everything "increasing in value" with the passage of time. Indeed certain things do increase in value because of demand but I would not want to be seen as some kind of a greedy crotch with his knees knocking together, crisply and loudly declaiming the vitrues of his old gun, and salivating while nodding to the posted price on a tag and then peeing in his pants at the slightest indication his price is being considered.
Obviously older American (and some other) guns prettied up as scarlet harlots are not expected to have the particular lockwork or ol' timey bore lapping on a breast drill which went into old British Best guns. The action work can be done by skilled people who do competition guns (of the newer type) and who could likely do as much for solid old reliable American guns. And there are always Baikals which may be regarded as raw materials for study. In fact, there is someone who does trigger work for the Baikal hammer version used in Cowboy shoots. If American walnut was used on old Parkers, then have the stock duplicated in the best quality obtainable for a gun which might have had it ordered originally.
No gun of good solid ol' timey American manufacture (I'm speaking of the shuckers and others) is NOT worth enhancing with period style high quality work. That applies to the innards of the action regardless of type. If something should be kept absolutely original, then so be it as regards the visible aspects. Remember, as the old saying goes, they all go BANG when you pull the trigger (and do much the same work).
