doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Something I've noticed

Provenance and known history adds value. I don't even know or care who made my last find, unimportant because my surname isn't: Holland, Beasley, Richards, Davis, Martin,.... it would be 😎 to find something with same surname as my own, isn't going to happen.

Well…..a GSXR, it ain’t.




Even if JV owned it.

Best,
Ted

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Did you buy your RBL from John Roberts? He had one. Come to think of it, a lot of people here, “ had” one.

I also owned one of his for a short time until someone saw it who wanted it more than me and were willing to pay for it.

take a look at this Stan...

https://www.gunsinternational.com/g...n-1853.cfm?gun_id=103673179&cdn_bp=1

don't hit jes twang yo rebel heart strings...

or is you ah descendant o rich Yankee carpetbagging farmers, witch what came down afta shermans army...

an den stole some lan fur Scallywag taxes...

an den share cropped it out to widders an orphans an udder po folk...

who what lost every thin in duh wa...

Provenance can be very important to me, Ted, just not British provenance. One of the highlights of my gunning life was spending an hour with Bo Whoop in Savannah a few weeks before it was shipped to Julia's Auction and ultimately donated to Ducks Unlimited.

That provenance of it being owned and hunted by Nash Buckingham struck a chord with me, because I share the same love of the southern swamps and ducks that Mr. Nash had. To have held his gun in my grubby little hands and looked down those barrels literally quickened my heartbeats. So, I do understand and appreciate provenance at times.

I absolutely appreciate the quality and handling characteristics of fine London doubles, and have shot a few very well. But, I just cannot share in this anglophile thing. It means absolutely nothing to me.

How many times have you heard "If this gun could only talk"? That is what provenance provides to me, some interesting history on my guns, who the men that ordered them were and occasionally you might stumble on some of the adventures these men lived. I own guns built for several Maharajas, the Earl of Cranbrook(who took my rifle to Burma in 1931), an heir to the DuPont oil fortune, a famed British surgeon(who used my rifle and the then new .303 British cartridge extensively in Africa), etc.

Sure more interesting than the provenance the Sharps rifle guys pursue if you ask me.

The Earl of Cranbrook's .30 Super, the only single shot Holland chambered in that caliber.







I own the third Holland/Woodward falling block that was built for surgeon David Bruce, he wrote a short article about his impressions of the .303 shortly after taking delivery of the rifle.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bruce_(microbiologist)



Last years buck with the Good Doctor's rifle



I don't have a clue who my Holland shotgun was made for but I do know that he had the same dimensions as I do. Love, love, love this gun, it will be the very last gun I part with and it has been my go to gun for over 15 years.







The provenance is just a bonus, the guns interest me.

No Stan, the fact that the Boss belonged to Lord Saville matters not much to me at all. I bought the gun simply because I have wanted a round action Boss forever. I was simply pointing out the fact that it was numbered #4 to state my point that back in the Edwardian days they shot multiple guns simply so they could shoot multiple birds during a single drive.
Lord Saville , I know very little about other that he often shot with the King himself.
And he was a avid grouse shot.

Here is an example

Stan,
Selective provenance?

Seems like when Teddy Roosevelt’s guns come up for sale, people go nuts. So, yea, I can see that, but, thankfully don’t suffer from it. Nobody from England or Europe means anything to me, or, you. I get that, too. Totally.
I have a couple that have provenance back to my dad, or someone else important to me, but, they wouldn’t mean much to anybody else.

Would you like to own Bo Whoop, Stan? Me, I’d pass, regardless of how good a deal it was. My roots would make it difficult for me to enjoy actually using an artifact like that, since it is historically important, and, as I recall Bo Whoop wasn’t a grouse gun. Ditto Roosevelts .405 lever action, cool, Teddy shot this, but, what would I use it for?

I have mostly given my dad’s guns to my kid. The Remington 241 my Dad bought new in 1947 was special to me most of my life, but, seems more special now that the boy owns it. The boy has his eye on a few other things, as well:



Best,
Ted

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Patience, grasshopper. The FJ is a force to be reckoned with. So too, is your mother.

Silly, Palunc, utterly silly. Sounds like Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Feh. 🫩