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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 01:40 pm |
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Sometimes we get folks on here who want to have their guns fully restored or who contend that values should be the same.
I'm waiting around this Memorial Day for the rain to end so I can go out and shoot in our annual small bore sporting clays event, and thought I might present an interesting exercise.
I am posting pictures of two small bore guns, both CHE's and roughly contemporaneous guns. The first gun of each sequence is original and a 1904 gun, the second is contended to be "restored" by a leading shop and is presumably a pre 1917 gun because it has the old style safety. The first is damascus, the second fluid steel, but disregard the barrel differences.
I make no suggestions one way or the other and leave it to people, many of whom are far more expert than me, to reach their own conclusions.
Original
Attached Image (viewed 631 times):
 Last edited on Mon May 26th, 2008 01:59 pm by Bruce Day
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Bruce Day
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 01:41 pm |
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 01:42 pm |
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| Original Attached Image (viewed 629 times):
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Bruce Day
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 01:42 pm |
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 01:43 pm |
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| Original Attached Image (viewed 621 times):
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Bruce Day
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 01:44 pm |
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Bruce Day
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 01:45 pm |
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| Original Attached Image (viewed 620 times):
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Bruce Day
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 01:46 pm |
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Dave Miles
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| Joined: | Thu Jan 6th, 2005 |
| Location: | Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 1730 |
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 01:58 pm |
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| Personally, I'd love to own the original gun.
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 02:01 pm |
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| Original Attached Image (viewed 606 times):
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Bruce Day
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 02:01 pm |
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Bruce Day
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 02:19 pm |
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The butt treatment is somewhat different, also. The original has that sharp edged skeleton steel butt and the restored one has a nice leather covered pad which some people prefer. There were no good pictures of the pad so I didn't do a butt picture.
Anyway, I thought you all might find this interesting and a new Parker person might find it informative. The first is a gun with hardly any case colors remaining and sometimes people think that the look of such a gun might be improved and value added if they had it re-casecolored.
Best regards.
Last edited on Mon May 26th, 2008 04:39 pm by Bruce Day
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RICHARD L ANDERSON
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 02:47 pm |
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Bruce,
Please send me the original one . Send a PM for the details. I like the wood figure in the restored gun a little better but IMHO the original gun is much more appealing.
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Bruce Day
PGCA Member
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 03:12 pm |
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Original. More of the stock wood.
Its that smoky Juglans regia. Thanks to Don Kaas I now know much more about gunstock walnut than I knew before and I appreciate his efforts to educate this prairie boy. I can't tell if the restored one is J. regia or J. nigra.
Still raining and my trigger finger is itching. I have about half a case of Federals to put through the gun today and I'd rather pull the trigger on it than take pictures.
Attached Image (viewed 581 times):
 Last edited on Mon May 26th, 2008 03:25 pm by Bruce Day
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Timothy Sheldon
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| Joined: | Sat Apr 1st, 2006 |
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 03:51 pm |
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Bruce, I love the origionals, the restored would go to OPC (other peoples collections).
Tim
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Tom Flanigan
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 04:56 pm |
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I'll forget for a moment that the little wood duck CHE is probably my single favorite of all the CHEs I have seen. This is an outstanding gun in every respect and the pattern of the bottom rib fascinates me. That aside, this un-restored gun is far more desirable, from my perspective than any restored gun.
I believe that cosmetic restoration should only be done if most of the original finish is gone and the checkering is worn off. In these cases, restoration is justified if it is a working gun. In most cases, I don't favor re-case hardening.
With guns that I restore, I usually do not sand the wood, instead leaving honorable dings present. I'll fill the pores level using the tung oil and mud process but do not cut down deeply into the wood itself. Then I'll apply a slacum and oil finish.
If the checkering is worn appreciably, I’ll re-cut and point it up and then brush oil on a couple of times. Fresh cut checkering looks out of place to me on a vintage gun and so I’ll then brush thinned artists paint (wooden bucket brown) into the checkering. This will mimic the color of checkering that has the patina of age.
I’ve always felt that a light touch is the best approach when refinishing a vintage gun and in some, if not most cases, it is better to do nothing. However, I often deviate from this opinion with composite barrels. The finish on these barrels, because of their susceptibility to wear and the effects of humidity, often deteriorate at a far greater rate than the other finishes on the gun, with the exception of case colors. Also, Parker completed the darkening of their composite barrels with a Logwood boil. Logwood is an organic substance that is diminished and faded by sunlight over a period of years. For these reasons, I’ve always believed that the inherent beauty of composite barrels should resurrected, ideally to a degree that is commensurate with the overall original finish remaining on the gun. In some cases this entails a total refinish but sometimes a refresh is in order.
For guns that I refresh, I generally complete a couple of iterations of the re-finishing process and end with a logwood boil. This removes some layers of age and returns greatly faded barrels or those that have become brown back to the original black and white. I like to tie the degree of restoration to the overall condition of the gun if the gun, in fact, has original finish. Totally restored barrels on a fine aged original finish gun looks out of place to me. In certain cases I also create a dark brown and almost but not quite black finish that looks just like barrels where the original black ferro-ferric oxide has begun to revert to the more stable brown ferrous iron oxide due to age and humidity. I have a closet 1889 DH with damascus barrels that are this color. I use this gun as a guide to getting the right color of brown / black for an aged effect. The effect of oxide conversion is very common on high original finish damascus guns.
However, after some disappointing results, I’ve come to the opinion that the only barrels that are candidates for a refresh, as opposed to a complete re-finish, at those without any rust blotches or patches. Unless completely polished (impossible to do without removing adjacent original finish), the rusted areas will reappear as black blotches after rusting iterations and the finishing logwood boil. I haven’t been able to solve this problem.
Taking Bruce’s little wood duck CHE as an example, I’ll propose a little blasphemy. If the gun were mine, I would very gently and carefully restore some of the color to the original barrels and return them to true black and white. I wouldn’t do a deep black but would complete a muted (not gray but black) and understated finish that would be hard for anyone, except for the most astute examiner, to tell was not original finish. The barrel finish would then be at the same level as the high original finish of the rest of the gun. This is a controversial position to take, I know, but I am a fanatic about composite barrels and I do believe that restoring some of the inherent beauty, if done properly and with a light hand, is sometimes justified.
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Jay Gardner
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 06:02 pm |
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Let's take this one to the next step then: That small bore 20 ga is spectacular. If there was another gun, in that exact configuration, that had been restored by a well known person (ex. DelGrego) how much less would te restoreed gun be worth in comparison? Put it a better way, what would be the approximate market value be?
Personally, I would love to own a small bore C gun with great engraving. However, I'll never spend on a gun what it would cost to own an original. A well restored gun might be the next logical step. My point is that there is a market for restored guns but I believe determining the price of a restored gun is much more difficult than determining the price of an original.
JDG
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Weathered corn, an apple left unnoticed on the tree, the crunch of frosted stubble underfoot, wood smoke in the evening - these things remind me of the wild, fall days of boyhood...the best of those days were the Saturday's, afield with my dad.
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Russ Jackson
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 07:16 pm |
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Bruce; Both guns are beautiful !! ,For my money ,I like most ,would pick the original gun but with that being said, the engraving on the original gun seems to be very unique! I couldnt pass it up with the roundrel with the setter in it, just beautiful, would you care to show us fellows that dont own a C grade small bore just whats on the other side of that little beauty?[url=javascript:emoticon(' ', 'images/emoticons/cool.gif')]document.write('[/url]');
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Cooper Smith
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 07:31 pm |
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Both of these examples are nice, but I would take an original condition gun first, every time. Refurbishing an original with a "light hand" is fine, but a fully restored gun somehow lacks the character and personality of an original. Happy to give that damascus barreled beauty a home anytime.
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Timothy Sheldon
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Posted: Mon May 26th, 2008 07:37 pm |
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| Bruce, your beautiful little CHE 20 looks to be in the same condition as the GH raffle gun before plastic surgery. Would you ever send in your little queen for that type of treatment?
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