Iron Man:
I think someone in the chain of title to the gun decided to snooker the next guy in the chain of title.
Why?
1) Commemoratives or "Specials" are produced for advertising and marketing purposes. Everyone knows about Ithaca's DU guns, and the commemoratives produced for Quail Unlimited. Anniversary guns such as S & W 125th , ec. are ballyhooed and photographed and accompanied by press releases. Doesnt seem likely that such a gun would be secret, or even unknown to the collector set.
2) Where would Remington get the frames? Surely they had not been sitting around the shop since 1904. ( I know that Cyril Adams found ONE unfinished action when he bought Atkin, Grant and Lang - but to find 88 hanging around strains credulity). Fabricating frames from scratch seems enormously far fetched - thats what makes English guns so expensive.
3) Why 20g? I would expect a game warden to prefer a 12g.
4) If Remington wanted to do a special thing for the 88 Game Wardens of Ohio, why not a special - made Remington 11-48, or one of the then-new, cutting edge Wingmaster 870 pumps? What good, from a marketing standpoint, could Remington accomplish from the GREAT expense of 88 special made shotguns, when those shotguns are not in the regular sales line, and cannot be expected to produce other sales or justification for the expense on the bottom line?
5) Gifts to public officials, simply because they are public officials, are frequently illegal, or must be handled through very narrow and controlled channels. Another reason this sounds, odd, to say the least.
6) Perhaps the Ohio DNR is more forthcomiong than most agencies, but I would expect it to be impossible to get most bureaucracies to acknowledge, in writing, the purchase or acquisition of a box of paperclips, much less shotguns, even in 1950.
7) I would suggest you give the alleged 1950's letter the Dan Rather "Microsoft Word" text test.
I look forward to pictures, but my guess is someone has put one over on someone in the chain of title, and has managed to turn a 50 buck gun into a 1000 buck gun with a little creative gunsmithing and fiction writing.
Of course, I could be wrong ,I have been in the past and likely will be in the future. Nonetheless, never forget "Caveat Emptor".
Regards
GKT
Last edited by Greg Tag; 12/27/06 09:32 PM.
