Well I guess you and Dave Noreen are right and I am wrong, but its the Cripps new photos showing the R that are determinative to me.
I haven't seen all the guns from the 1890's but I have seen variances in checkering and drop points within the same grade. I don't have enough photos to illustrate my point but I have a bunch of drop point guns and no two are exactly the same.
We ran into some of the same issues a while back where somebody was claiming that the thumb groove is never angled downwardly on the older Parkers, and I posted photos of the John Browning gun and a top lever hammer gun that had those features. To me , its always best to just pull the TG, but you are dead on correct here.
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