A friend of mine just bought that Purdey boxlock serial number 16477 out of Cabelas Fort Worth. He is heading to see Stephen Hutton up at Portsmouth to check it out.....the lever is loose....my first reaction was that the serial numbers were, as stated already, were etched in ...not anything like the usual workmanship....the barrels did not help as it was clear they were redone...another issue for me was that the name on the rib had a convincing address but also ended with " England".. It is a nice gun and the engraving is clearly well done as well as the J. Purdey and Sons. Engraving ...comparing it to mine .....the trade mark on the water table seems genuine as is the proofs...but I am not an expert....my other first reaction was that it appeared a legit A & D.... I compared it to the water table on a recent James Julia sale....it is a quality B and I know those are rare....the dolls head says Westley Richards all over it but I can find nowhere where WR made them for Purdey...but I know it could have been licensed to one of the named 4 or 5 Burmingham out sources for those guns...my friend contacted Purdey and got the same info which is in a Previous post above....and told where to look for it...I told him that since it appears to be restocked at some distant point in the past I was not sure what he would find and if built by a Burmingham firm it might not have any serial number....or it may well have the real Purdey number....which then begs the question.... Why the fake serial number in the first place....many questions....my research clearly indicates that Purdey would have put a serial number on those outsourced guns....if the gun changed many hands then in one of the sequences where the tang was redone...it may have simply been forgotten by one owner.....I certainly would not have just put any number on it....hope for his sake it is real and perhaps gone though numerous restorations....this is just to follow up on what you guys have posted.
Last edited by Condor; 02/16/13 04:09 PM.
