One would expect that the owner of a Fox CE would have some indication of what he had, and pursue work befitting of the grade of gun it is.

One would be wrong. Some of these guns are ending up with second cousins step nephew-in-laws after the owners cashes in. I believe I read that about 5% of the population still hunts, and bird hunters would be a subset of that 5%. I recently came into a Darne that a liberal witch couldn't wait to get out of her house. Clear thinking on a subject outside of her political realm would not appear to have been her forté, and I was damn surprised the gun simply didn't go into her trash can, rolled in a rug, under cover of darkness.

So it goes. You can lament, or, you can simply move on.

Best,
Ted