It wasn't just junkers this was done to, I once had a BHE Parker that had the same stock treatment and and the barrels cut in front of the forend. Had it mono-blocked by John Foster and restocked. Later discovered that it was originally a 34" gun, as it had no safety, deep floral and scroll engraving it was indeed very rare gun at one time.

I learn something every day, and a lot of times it's that what I learned the day before was wrong