Rib with no "matting"

[TNR]

A couple months ago I looked a friend's gun, a early 20 ga VH, and the barrels had no matting at all (totally smooth) on the top of the rib. The barrels were no question parker barrels with the typical parker inspector stamps, etc on the flats, etc. and were serialized to the gun.

I have seen Remington era guns without the roll stamp on the barrel rib but they had matting.

I have seen a few mentions that some Remington rebarrel jobs have no matting on the rib? I've also heard of some NOS barrels being fitted by Lefever? But if it was the later would they be serialized to the gun with no matting?

Can anyone confirm this?

I know there was a good article on rib matting in a 2013 parker pages issue but apparently I misplaced that issue...