VH with Cut Barrels

[Beaver Bob]

I was able to view a vh today that the person was selling for an estate..he lead me up a few days ago about it and that he had done reserch on it and determined it was a 5 to 6 thousand dollar gun.. I said I was interested, he didn't remember what guage it was but I would be able to look at it today..so, my mind was full of all kinds of visions.. when he drug it out slowly from the case I could see that the wood was probably v grade.. then I could see that it was a small guage..I have only 12's so I'm used to seeing larger barrels.. I took it down hoping it was marked but it was not.. It looked like a 28ga but probably a 20 ga, i didn't have a way to measure bore size but I had a small tape, the barrels were 24 1/4 inches long and the border on the end was missing...also the ribs were soldered over.. then I saw the checkering on the side panels which hid the wooden cross plug on the head of the stock...it was about 3/8 dowel stock but nicely done..the bores were fine with no problems. after I pointed out these deficiencies they said the they would take $1200 for it because you can't sell something nice like this around here for any more.. I jotted down the #'s and told them I would think about it... came home to my books and found it was not in there... the ser # was 105071 on a 0 frame with double triggers and a very small chip on the side of the dogs head butt plate.. the frame has about 25% light colors on it and about 50 % barrel blue with the weight of 2# 15 ozs.. I was wondering what you all think...BeaverBob

[B. Dudley]

Collector value has been destroyed obviously with the barrels being cut. And then added issues like a pinned stock and checkered side panels are more negatives.

It is hard to touch a 20g for under a thousand unless it is a Trojan, and even then, it is still hard to find good guns bear that price range.

The damage has been done. But I do not think that is a bad price for an altered VH 20g for a shooter/Hunter if you don't mind having a gun with barrels that short.