I wonder just how big the market for matched pairs really is, and surmise that it's shrinking all the time, maybe at a faster rate than for single vintage doubles. If I'm right, lower prices for them are to be expected rather than be a surprise, Purdey's or not.
SRH
The discussion and its ultimate issue is the value that a shooter or two shooters could have had in buying the pair of Purdeys noted on the Morphy auction--not how big or small the market is for pairs of best quality English guns. These Purdeys apparently sold for $30,750.00 plus 20% fee for a total price of $36,900.00 or $18,450.00 each. At the same time Graham MacKinlay has a similar pair of Purdeys made one year later for sale at his shop in Scotland for $63,175,00 or $31,587.50 each.
It is not rocket science to see the value if a couple of "good ole boys" who wanted to own a good condition Purdey went in together and bought such a pair that sold for such a bargain at Morphy's.
Now these Purdey's at Morphy's need to be sent over to the UK and chambered and proofed for 2 3/4" and even when you do that and pay for it, the two "good ole boys" would have guns that were at least $10,000.00 of real value in their hands versus what they would have had to pay in the UK. It is interesting to note that the Graham MacKinlays Purdey's are 2 1/2 inch chambers as well and need rechambering and reproof to my mind.
This is where the REAL value of buying pairs are in the market just now, and it is not just now, now, as I remember sitting on the sofa at the late Cyril Adams home 15 years ago and talking about how the real value of English pairs in the USA was selling them individually then.
