My great uncle had a bunch of shotguns made into lamps. When I was 5 years old, I recognized the crime. Not sure what became of all of them.

Well damn , I didn't see Cownas there . I spent a lot of time at the Guyette & Deeter tables looking at the stuff for their upcoming auction in February .

I may someday be guilty of upgrading a gun, but in my opinion only, an upgraded gun is worth the most to the original owner (or relative perhaps)

I looked the gun over, but it was a little gawdy IMO.

The 38" barrels are intriguing. I would like to see the barrels with the wedge engraving after Breck Gorman has his way with the barrels!

Stan

Something like Russ Jackson's BHE 410 or some of the Del Grego/Runge GH upgrades that appear from time to time kinda appeal to me. Otherwise, I will stick with originals

The subject of upgrades and their values is one that, in my opinion, is completely dependent on the quality of the work.

I will say it again, this subject gun is not an “upgrade”. That term is used far too often and very inaccurately. An upgrade is a lower grade gun that is reworked to accurately replicate a higher grade gun. This is a custom gun, made to the owners taste with no regard to accuracy of a given original grade.

As for value, I personally feel that a faithful reproduction of a AA or A-1 parker can be executed for far less than the market value of a comparable original. When we see asking prices of original A1 specials in the $50-$150 range, a well done upgrade could still bring a profit over cost to make when sold. Fully disclosed and well done upgrades have been getting more attention and their asking/sale prices reflect that.

It is the opposite for a custom gun. I would say that in most instances, the investment to create it would not be recouped. And that is ok too. As long as the person commissioning the project does not care, nobody else should.

It's a beauty, and looks like a fun gun. That should be enough for some.

Just watched the Cowan auction. The winning bid was 13000, 15990 all in. That was a higher than 20 percent premium that they charge, so it must have come from Proxibid or someone outside. Don't really know why someone does that instead of placing a proxy direct with the auction house. Anyway, prices were really strong overall. Most Parkers were about what you would expect. One del Greco-Roman BHE went for 4800 all in, and reproductions were pretty reasonable, but overall the prices were really strong. Seemed like a huge demand for old stuff and much European. Things like muskets, pepperboxes, derringers, flintlock were very often tripling the high estimate, before premium.

Knives tanked, for what it's worth.

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I was planning on bidding on the BHE Delgrego had redone but forgot about it . I see the BHE went for 4K plus the extras .

I wasn't planning on bidding on anything, but bid on the BHE at the last minute and then got outbid.