Auction action

[Vikram]

Yesterday we,Major Grumpus,Hamiclar and me,went to another gun auction. Some beauties and some beastlies. Met Hamiclar for the first time and I found him to be very pleasant with a good sense of humour.
Had a long discussion over cappuccinos,bacon rolls etc.Abhijeet is familiar with the scene. .

This FN Browning25 engraved by Ernst was the star of the auction. 28" barrels and choked half & full.









Gorgeous isn't it? Went for 5,200GBP.But there was a reserve of 7000 GBP on it hence unsold. Grumps tells us that new this would cost closer to 30,000 grand!

The beastly of the show was this Brno skeet special with ported chokes.The ugliest of the lot.Was expected to make 50 pence.Made 230GBP.






There was this very interesting combination shotgun by Joseph Unger, of Austria I think.Top 12 bore and the bottom barrel .410.Makes any sense? Made 1700 GBP.






This very nice looking Beretta S687 EELL was bid for 1600 GBP but there was a 2000GBP reserve on it.


Another very interesting curio was this .54 Tranter 5shot percussion revolver with patent double trigger and 6.25" barrel.I never saw something like this.


Notice the double trigger


This is how you cock and shoot it.


Use your middle finger to cock the hamer by pressing the bottom trigger



Cocked



Fired!

For it's ungainly looks, it fit in my hand perfectly and just locked onto where I aimed.Superb balance."Just a different way of doing it", so said the wise man.

Ladies and Gentlemen, now comes the big daddy of all the guns there in.

This is an 8 bore hammer gun by Midland gun Co of Birmingham.36" nitro barrels, 7/8 & Fullchokes.3.25" chambers.Damascus barrels and nitro proved.Superbly figured stock



I hefted it and mama mia.It takes a lot to shoot this gun.



Jones rotatory under lever.


That's me holding it in left hand and taking a picture with the right.You can see the shake.



Now, compare the cannon with this very nice .410 by Chas Osborne. That's me holding them aloft. Clays any one?



Went for 3800 GBP.

A great many guns went far beyond the expected price this time and what was expected to make money went dirt cheap. A Leech&Sons 12 bore sidelock was expected to make close to 3000GBP.It went for 720GBP.I was in great frustration as I could not bid and Grumps was away for a minute.
Two .22 rifles, Remington 700 & a Winchester, went for 2 & 3 GBP.Not even worth the coffees we had.In perfect condition. And some guns went far beyond their actual worth.

Dev (Shooter) who missed the auction was constatntly calling me and enquiring how the auction was going.Poor chap.I felt bad for him.No problem amigo.Sometime soon.

Hope you enjoyed the pics.Thanks for watching this.

Best-
Vikram

[Grumpy]

Oh, it was Dev who kept calling you - I thought it was your girlfriend who was constantly nagging !!! LOL

The Leech SLE made ridiculously little money.........especially as a William Richards made £2000 and Leech is a much better known name.

The double eight was a cracker - Barrels were in superb condition. Very..... VERY heavy though ......... which is hardly surprising.

The Browning B25 didn`t appeal to Hamilclar - "Too gaudy" was his opinion.......which made me laugh because one upon a time such decoration was made pretty well exclusively for the Indian market. Nowadays it`s mostly Arabs who like a lot of gold and who buy `E` grade guns like this.

The Tranter revolver WAS very nice and felt very good in the hand - much better than a Colt ( say ) of the same era.

A very strange auction as many prices were very unpredictable - an IAB O/U for example made £420.......which is WAAAY more than it was worth yet a Marlin M70 semi-auto .22 in good order and threaded for a moderator only made £2....... but other .22s sold very well.

[kanwar76]

OooooH Nice guns .. thats a reward for living in mecca of shotguns

I agree with Hamiclar browning is lovingly beautiful but too fancy to take out in field..

.22 for pounds 2............dozen please

Thanks a lot Vikram for taking time to post the pics.

-Inder

[GasramGandu]

Nice account, Vikram. Good show.

[mundaire]

Thank you for sharing Vikram... BTW, the Brno shotgun pictured looks a lot like the ones that NRAI had imported during the late 80's/ early 90's. These were issued on a preferential basis to NRAI members on a "first come, first serve" basis (read issued to people close to the coterie that runs the show out there).

Saw a couple in action during the Trap/ Skeet Nationals in 1992 (I think)... Don't think the shooters using them won anything...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[HSharief]

The side by side picture of the side by sides (8 and .410) is the best picture I like. I wd've liked to see a pic of the muzzles. I'm really glad you guys had fun at this event.

[Mack The Knife]

Thanks, Vikram.

BTW, don't you have a VERY wide angle lens on your camera? Poor Grumpy keeps getting left out.

Mack The Knife

[Mack The Knife]

.22 for pounds 2............dozen please

Inder, do you realise that what we pay for a Brno in very good nick, we could have picked up 1000 of these rimfires?

[Grumpy]

These Brnos are REALLY horrible - it`s virtually the same model as a friend of Dodgers bought ( was going to buy ? ) about a year ago. Seems to be made of pressed baked bean tins. Couple that with ported Tulla chokes and stumpy barrels and it it really is a grim load of do do. £230 was good money because I know of a couple more with dealers who would happilly get rid of them for half the price.........if they could !

[Grumpy]

The shot of the Tranter was taken with a wide angle......had to be to get my fat hand in the picture !

[Mack The Knife]

Seems to be made of pressed baked bean tins.

That's the spec for the U.K. version. We get the steel and walnut model.

Jokes apart, they are good solid guns and I would happily buy the one my friend was selling - if I could have afforded it then. It now belongs to a friend of Gasramgandu.

Mack The Knife

[Mack The Knife]

The shot of the Tranter was taken with a wide angle......had to be to get my fat hand in the picture !

Precisely why I asked if he had a VERY wide angle lens.

[Grumpy]

Um........... Oh well, you don`t exactly have a lot of choice so I suppose that your criteria are somewhat different.
Re the `Walnut`. I have distinct doubts about that...........some sort of stained Pine would be my guess. If it is Walnut it`s very poor quality. Definitely isn`t Beech either. It looks like the `Walnut` used on a lot of WWII M98s - and quite a few Smellies - which was deal Pine.
The whole gun smacks of some sort of communist era economy design.

[Mack The Knife]

I don't know about the one at the auction but the one my friend had certainly wasn't walnut. Just mucking about.

[Grumpy]

???? `Only joking` about what ?

Much to subtle for one of my poor intellectial abilities to understand.