Like buying a piece of the true cross - has nothing to do with it's sporting ability.
Recently Purdey had a "slow pitch" article in SSM announcing their new .410 was to be made finally on a proportioned, dedicated .410 frame because still using a 28-ga frame "just wouldn't do." (At $80,000 one would think....) This ad/article was in the context of having belatedly invented the wheel about 80 years after Parker Bros introduced their .410 with a dedicated 000-size frame in 1925 or '26.
While a .410--be it a Parker or Purdey--hardly has anything to do with shooting sports, and I doubt whether any of the new $49,000 Remington/Galazan/Parker AAHE 28-gauges will see much service in the field, some people like smallbores, maybe as a declaration of their shooting prowess or wealth or just because they like it and money is not scarce in their life. They probably favor bamboo 3-weight fly rods with thin leaders and spider-web tippets. But going back to the post about the "best" of the Britain that used to be Great, the guns on The Field's list are nothing I would select for the purpose intended, unless the intention was to brag that I paid too much for something "Best" kept locked up in the gun vault.
As to "...teaching the boys at the PGCA a lesson in greed," the gun was bought by a dealer on a single bid with no underbidder, which may be a lesson of sorts. Meanwhile the better example of a gun best suited for purpose is the $850 Trojan I bought for my son at the Vintagers. It's close to new on the inside because it was a closet gun, and because it got stuck in the closet, forgotten for decades, it got rusty on the action and barrels. The barrels were refinished, and the action has a few pits and no colors because of the rust removal; but the wood is all original and in collector condition. In this context, the Chavinistic British opinions of self-agrandizing worth are as irrelevant today as they were back in the nineteenth century, when thousands of good ol' boys were buying Parkers, L.C.Smiths. Ithacas, and Lefevers for every one Lord-of-the-Manor wannabe who coughed up twice the money for a grade-comparable import.
Now that we know the identity of the best British shotguns per their leading magazine's zenophobic blinders-on opinion in re: their advertisers, I predict the number of American sportsmen taking the bait will be countable without removing footwear. EDM
