Given the finicial state your in now, time machine back.
Would your hard earned dollar go for a American gun maybe a Parker or Fox. Or a tool to use just to put game on the table, maybe a Crescent. Or perhaps your a doctor and perfered that Purdy. Back then all these where made to be used, what would your income or means allow you to purchase?

I'll go first...........i prolly would think of myself buying a V grade Parker, or perhaps a G grade Lefever. Maybe if the crops did well one year i could buy something with modest engraving. Prolly not a Optimus though!

I would be buying Boss shotguns as fast as I could find them - for resale as soon as the time machine returned me to now. (Would have to keep a couple for myself though). Certainly will never afford one at today's prices. Also scoop up any Diamond and Diamond Regent grade Lindner Daly's I might encounter. The one Diamond grade I found at a semi reasonable price was the slickest gun I ever handled (sold it though).

Need to put an "e" in Purdy if you mean the English Best shotguns and not the Belgium name knock off.

I would likely buy a Merkel O/U in 16 ga as I prefer to hunt with them over sxs guns. I put more credance in guns that I shoot well, than those of bigger names. I guess I am too practical.

Lenard

Given my present financial status, using the Tardis and going back in time, I would purchase Purdey, Boss, Holland & Holland, and Westley Richards.Not the guns, the Factories and the Names.
Must sign off now, Nurse says it's time for my medication.

Buy land. Poor land for farming in those days is selling for top dollar now. My family was poor in those days and had to buy low land that did not grow many crops well. Now this same land in in high demand. Real estate brokers call it water front property and one farm, which was bought for $4,500 in 1913, just sold for a little over $9,000,000.00. Pity is that is is on the other side of the family. Oh well.

I'd go with a Parker PH model myself.

That's precious, Sal. Given my immense relative financial leverage, I was considering the Willy Welly Greener operation--lock, stock and many barrels. Sherman! Set the Wayback machine for waaaay back!

jack

Cheap when new, pricey when minty - Parker Vhe smallbores.
...and maybe Philly Sterlingworths also in the smallish.
To walk on the wildside, Remington hammerless guns.

A set of Remington Hammerless Guns in EEO-Grades -- 10-gauge with full pistol grip and 32-inch barrels for waterfowl, 12-gauge 30-inch straight grip no-safety Pigeon gun, and a straight grip 16-gauge bird gun with 28-inch barrels; and all the waterfront land around lake Coeur d'Alene I could find.

I'd want a late 1920s vintage LC Smith Featherweight 16 with hi- rib, ejectors, 28" IC/F, a half-pistol grip and splinter forend, and Ideal Grade wood and engraving. Second would be a Grade 1 NID 10-bore with "magnum" (2 7/8") chambers, same style stock and forend, extractors, and 32" barrels bored IM/Full. You can see I favor "engravin' that you can see acrost the room"!

These guns just strike me as being as American as doubles can be, and lifelong shooters.

A farm outside Phoenix bought for a few bucks an acre. What's it worth now?

Arable farm land. And I wouldn't have let my family sell any of it.

"Bests", I don't think, were ever "cheap"; the 50-80 guineas for one was out of range for one such as me on a teacher's wage. Inflation has done extraordinary things to our currencies! I'd spend up on a nice Greener perhaps, or have bought up those obsolete, unfashionable hammer guns, and "useless" muzzleloading Manton's that no one wanted anymore...

No I don't need a time machine - I've already got several. Every time I touch of a hand loaded black powder cartridge, roll crimped by hand with hand punched, wax lubed wads, shot and powder measured with a dipper, I'm transported back!

What should we be buying now? Probably arable farmland still.
RG

Back then I would have to go with the venerable Winchester M12, no bag limits, load that baby to the nines!!!! smooth operation, good price, rugged reliability, the ability to shot either small or large game...the perfect machine to feed a family!!!
But it would be very unlikely I could afford a new gun soooo more than likely it would be a hand-me-down H&R single or at best a Crescent or Meriden double!!!
All the best

Sorry, but I think I would have opted for Sousa grades in each available gauge!

I'd spend more wisely....I'd be buying all the used pre 1898 Ehglish best shotguns.

My family and I have bought and sold land.
We've sold most of our restricted land other than where my parents live.
Nothing legal can beat it for the buck made.
A heavy proofed Boss would do the trick.

I would opt for Ithaca Sousa grades in all available gauges

A set of Parker Bros. CH grade guns, straight-hand stocked to fit me in .410, 28, 20, 16 and 12 gauges, 28 " bbls, DT, splinter fore end, skeleton butt plate. As these are all guns to be used in the field, plain extractors are to be preferred. All guns made on the smallest frame available for the given gauge. Each gun individually cased with accessories. -- Ed

One (at least) of everything.

A Remington 1889 for a gun with hammers, and a 1894 for one without. I've owned LCS, Parker, Ithaca- like the Remingtons the most. paul

If you've got an "eye" for land, that's where to invest---then and now. Nova Scotia waterfront is a world-wide hotspot. I've never had an itch to make money but could have made enough flipping land here to buy any double 20 times over. When I came home to a second career 40 years ago my buddies teased me for buying an old farm on the sea for $5,500, house, barns, furniture, everything. Yes, I paid three times the going rate but sold it to the government for a provincial park 25 years later for $700,000. Land beats the market any day.

In 1923 CB Vaughan in the Strand were offering the then unfashionble secondhand 'as new' Purdey hammer ejector for ..... £17. A Hammer non ejector was ..... £10.

Decisions, decisions!

High grade Lefevers in small gauges.