I've been hanging around this board for some time, I can say that there are some very knowledgeable people here. I've seen several discussion on the British gun trade. My question is this, did many shotguns, even the "Best" begin in Birmingham and Belgium as "rough" castings/forgings and were finished in London or did the "Best" (H&H, Rigby, Richards) have their own "works", manufacturing a gun from scratch? It seems to me a London addy always brings a premium (a sales ploy in some cases) no matter where the gun was actually made especially if one is not familiar with the meaning of proof marks. Any comments would be appreciated, just how does/did it work? --- John Can.
