Shawn, Bob J's upgrade is one of the better ones I have seen, especially in terms of detail to the wood as well as metal execution. My friend Shelly Gitman had a number of DelGrego/Runge upgrades done in the 1980s and '90s, chiefly smallbores, but also a few larger bores and one or 2 SBT guns. In the 1960s and '70s, they (DelGrego and Runge) did a number of A1S upgrades for Tom Wilkins of Wilkins Coffee fame, several of which I had the opportunity to see and inspect before delivery. Often derided as "one-off copies" in the day, they are priceless artifacts now and smart people buy them when they can.
Other artisans have done A1S upgrades (e.g., Pachmayer, Dan McCombs). There is a tendency when doing upgrades to vastly exceed or over embellish tableaus of original Parker Brothers or the very few Remington Ilion Parker Guns layouts in an effort to produce a "stupefying" effect of extravagance or superior refinement of original Parker Gun standards, which become very apparent when examining guns upgraded particularly in the last 15-20 years.
Interestingly enough, some of the highest grade guns were produced with relatively subdued decoration (e.g., no game scenes, only scrollwork, or in some rare cases, no engraving at all at the highest grades). There are a number of examples in prior threads.
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