Ivanhoe is groing through 50 years of UK gun auction catalogs he's kept...over a thousand, looking for Reilly's for my comprehensive Reilly SN database and for interesting pin-fires. One of the Reilly's he forwarded from a 1974 catalog turned out to be SN 35423, one of Cyril Adams' pigeon guns and now well known over here. Here are his comments - truly a lost golden age in gun sales:

"I'm now in 1976 Weller & Dufty catalogues, and it's a revelation! I'd not looked at this era for 40 years! The huge volume of stuff going through every 5 weeks, was awesome! The number of lots over the two day sales was around 1300.....putting the "high-class" London salerooms to shame. From 1974 to where I am at the moment, sees very large numbers of "Best" British double rifles, as well as shotguns! It's slowing me down, as I feel compelled to read through all the descriptions, as avidly as I did 45 years ago! The two catalogers really knew their stuff, and it's fairly obvious where some of the London based "experts" got their ideas from!"

edit: Sorry I missed this line where Ivanhoe contributed:
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forum...at&Number=595178&nt=2&page=1

I Have 30 0r so catalogues from this era. My principal interest being vintage hammer guns the following catalogues were of special importance.
Christie's The Yannaghas Collection.Dec,1 1998.
Shared this catalogue info with Stephen Nash ,due to the fact that it contained pictures and descriptions of 10 superb Pinfire guns. Top seller in this auction was a double barrel pinfire rifle by John Dickson, sold for7475 pounds.
The other collections of note, was that Sold by;
Christies on 20 March 2002 .This catalogue Contained parts of the Emil Rosner And Geoffrey Boothroyd collection.
Notable in the Rosner collection, was lot 267a 20 bore Boss pin fire shot gun lot,196, said to be the earliest known Boss shot gun. It sold for 4112 pounds.
Over the past 60 years I have acquired auction catalogues from most UK auction house, I still refer to the 30 catalogues that I retained.

For a historian trying to compile a database of serial numbers and gun types for a lost UK gunmaker, to try to recreate the records and date the guns, these catalogs are a bonanza. It's a shame there isn't some sort of central record for them which can be accessed. For instance UK newspapers for several centuries can be accessed at this site and key word searched:
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

I'm wondering if the people scanning the newspapers would be interested in so scanning these catalogs. Obviously the technology exists.