Stan, I think you make an interesting point when you raise the fact that Beretta has been in business for 500 years. Although, when you look into it, the direct linkage to 500 years in the past has a few tenuous links. Unlike say, The Hudson Bay Company, current parent to Sak's Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, which will shortly be celebrating 350 years since they were chartered by the British Crown in 1670, a full 100 years before your tea party.
And I have no argument with the idea that Beretta currently can make some lovely guns. But when was the last time anyone on this board wanted to discuss some lovely pre war Beretta? Or any pre war Italian gun? When we delve into the world of sporting doubles, which is what this board talks about when we aren't crapping on liberals, the Italians are noticeably absent until the post war era.
Which, to my mind, confirms the point Craig made way back at the start. The Beretta family can't hold a candle, long term, to any of the storied British gunmakers, nor some of the French or Germans, as "gunmakers".
But no other firearms firm that makes sporting shotguns can touch Beretta as a business enterprise. There is where the Beretta's family's genius lies.
By the same token, there is only one other firearms COMPANY that comes close as a business, IMHO. And that would be FN, the Belgian joint venture whose early years were driven by none other than Henri Pieper.
