The one that got away! The thought of this gun and its end has always been a mental itch over the intervening years I could not scratch. Yes! The photograph is yours truly in the 1960s and the gun was a 1890s 12 bore Cogswell & Harrison side lock ejector with engraving to die for a perfect Silvers pad, but a scrapper non the less. The gun cost me the grand sum of twenty five pounds. Now the bad part it had Damascus barrels that I thickly rust blued to hide her Damascus pattern also put it back on face though one bore measured .740 with the other .743 9 inches from the breach on a cold day more on a warm day, English proof laws say it is out of proof. Well it was a Coggie! After all and a good looking one at that so I kept and used it for a couple of years then sold it to a friend,who also kept it for a year then traded it for a new AYA box lock. He told me a week later what he had done, I went the gun store to try and purchase the gun but all to late the gun had been crushed at the local scrap metal merchants. Looking back from today some 50 years that guns action would have been re barrelled just for the exquisite engraving alone. No matter how good the quality at the time the gun was scrap and practically valueless.
