LG, from the comments above, I conclude that we can't all see the elephant from the same perspective and our seat-of-the-pants generalizations are probably suspect-mine as well as yours. From the limited vantage point of personal experience: ITEM: When my brother-in-law died in 1996, we discovered more than a dozen blanket-wrapped bundles in his machinery shed. All single shot break-open shotguns, all 12 gauge, no doubleguns. He was certainly attendant at many local farm auctions in north-central Indiana, so the old things were still around into the last three decades of the 20th C. ITEM: My grandfather, nominally a small Ohio farmer, who made more ready cash money breaking horses than he ever did farming and had a fairly pretentious shingle style "farmhouse" built in 1924, had one shotgun in the pantry on the landing of the cellar stairs--a rustyloose 12 gauge single. ITEM: My dad, despite a latter-day preference for High Standard, hunted squirrel most of his adult life with a Wards "Western Field"-relabelled Ivor Johnson Champion. Certainly post-depression and in 20 gauge but about as much of a meat gun as he needed and no more. ITEM: Millers in New Castle DE, has a barrel altho it is now red injection-molded plastic rather than staves and hoops. Along with the polychoked bolt guns, there are always a few clapped-out break-open 12s; the majority are "modern" H&R Toppers but among them are always some older looser, browner tomato stakes. Obviously they are not up on the consignment rack with the BT-99s.
As for the VFW, Nur Temple, local collector assoc. shows, I don't see break-open singles in any great quantity; understandable given the collector bias toward something which has at least minimal cachet and condition. Just because the gun behind the kitchen door is now an autoloader, pump or even something more suitable for "socializing" doesn't convince me that these old residenters weren't sold by the millions or that many aren't hanging around. I would think production and sales nos. would be available for American-built single-shots and even Belgian iron before them. Might be revealing.
jack
