It has taken some forty five years to bring to an end a personal story and search that where both started in the 1960s.
First the story in short when I was in my early twenties I had all my lifes luck in one large helping you could say. It all began at a local Cheshire shooting club sale one Sunday morning when a dealer opened the boot (trunk) of his car and at the back in the half dark was a Purdey wood bar shotgun, in the most appalling condition which I fell for immediately well it was a Purdey after all. I borrowed the money to purchase the gun which then gave me further years of saving to restore it to the usable condition it is in today.
The search was caused by the dealer I purchased the gun from because he removed the gun from its original Oak and leather case so he could make some extra cash by selling the case separately. Now at the time I could only raise enough cash to purchase the gun only so the case disappeared never to be seen again. The guns case may have disappeared but the picture it left in my mind has never changed or the want for the gun to have case from its own historical time period, its original case was black leather rather than the usual brown versions we see with a Burgundy lining.
Now a month ago I was looking through one of the internet auction sites there jumping out from the screen was an exact version of that case that I committed to memory all those years ago. Identical size and colour but with a different makers label though from the same time period as the gun, though its condition varied from dreadful to wrecked with missing straps and handle its lock worked when it felt like and one of the previous owners had painted two roundels I suppose for identification at a distance on the top. Just like the gun all those years ago I purchased it and in the end the price was not what I would call reasonable either in fact I will say at my age I really should have known better!!!!!!!!!
After the brutal removing of the roundels and paint splashes using a solvent and abrasive then it was the restoration of the extremely dried out Aniline leather which mainly consisted of half a day in a Neats-foot oil and steam bath. Next was re-dyeing leather where the roundels had been removed then what seemed like vast amounts of Lanolin and neats-foot oil mixture (also good for your hands) vigorously rubbed in to improve the leathers overall condition. To complete the leather work I made four replacement case strap retainers because their leather had become far too brittle to be re-used plus making two new straps each fitted with a vintage buckle. Finally a well proportioned vintage leather handle that I purchased from another auction site though not in as good condition as the photographs led me to believe, so after re-stitching and making two new case handle loops to replace the original damaged ones and changing its colour from brown to black and fitting a couple of new brass D rings.
The Brass case fittings where all present though black and showing every bit their hundred plus years of life, so I made the conscious decision to clean them only to the point that you can see they are brass but not removing the dents and marks. The one thing I was not prepared to do was clean all sixty four half inch screws from the corner fittings and strap retainers I purchased new replacements.
That is the end of my efforts on the outside of the case the next instalment will be re- lining the inside.
So far so good!!!!
