Hi, my name's Aleksei, and I can't read proof marks.
Seriously, I am not an expert, and hope you can tell me whether I'm correct in my conjectures.
This here is a 20 ga BLE signed by Ivan Alyoshkin. Alyoshkin worked in St. Petersburg, Russia, from about 1890 to 1917, and some collectors put his guns above Matska and Maslov (or, at least, at their level). Alyoshkin's shop mostly dealt in guns by other makers and related merchandise, and he didn't make more than 10-15 guns a year. This gun is No 83, and it probably left the shop in 1905-1906, because the next known gun, No 90, is dated 1906.
The seller advertises it as having "Full London proofs". And the flats do have what looks like pre-1904 proofs to me. In addition, there are marking suggesting that the barrels were made by Kilby. However, there are a few things that don't add up.
1. Where's the Nitro proof stamp?
2. According to the seller, the gun has 70 mm. chambers. However, there's no mark for long chambers.
3. What does 21 stand for? The actual bore size?
Am I right in thinking that the gun was supplied as a barreled action, with barrels deliberately underbored so that the maker could bore them to whatever dimensions the client specified, and that's how it skipped Nitro proofs?
