Quite the contrary, Lowell. However much Mr. Ansley may have despised the necessity of the low-end bread and butter product, the Sterlingworth was still not quite the Volksgun. $30 in 1911 dollars would have had the buying power of about $600 in 1993. Given the "plowing it back in and praying for a good result" nature of family farming and the relatively large and hungry "all in the family" work force that made labour-intensive agriculture barely possible and tolerable, my intuition as well as my experience tells me that the average small farmer of 1911 probably wouldn't have taken naturally to the idea that he had $30 in "disposable" (read money to burn) income and would have very likely stepped off his back porch into the gamey landscape with a no-name single-barrel meat gun, leaving the "lowly" S/W or Parker Trojan to the "sports". And, as you say, in 12 gauge.
jack
