I told him with that limited information it could be anywhere from $250-$5,000, but most likely in the $250-$500 range. A couple hours later I get a text from him with this picture asking if I want it for $250.
Having no real idea what I'm looking at, I say sure I'll take it.
Turns out, the shotgun belonged to a friend of his who is very anti gun, and had inherited it from her father who passed a few years before. She just wanted rid of it.
So I picked it up a couple days ago and start investigating. I thankfully found this site which has been extremely helpful in identifying what exactly I have here.
From what I gather it is a:
Fox AE Grade shotgun with 30 in barrels. SN 25XXX.
Full pictures here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/6qiaBubnfuCtdhjQ7
Unfortunately the condition is pretty rough. When I first got it the safety was completely bound as was the forearm release. Took a lot of oil to get them both working. Now that they are, functionally the gun seems fine from everything I can tell. Locks up tight, triggers break as I would expect, firing pins leave a solid dent in the wood after using a block to dry fire for disassembly.
Back to the bad parts about the condition...
There's an obvious stock repair where it meets the receiver on the left side.
The recoil pad it had on it was in really rough shape and had some kind of aftermarket spacer that was definitely not original I'm guessing 60's-80's and was covered in mold.
The finish is bad. Lots of rust in all the tight spots.
The steel portion of the forearm is completely covered in rust.
The receiver finish looks terrible. Dark splotches all over. Plus of course, more rust.
The barrels had some kind of gunk or something stuck to the side of one, not sure what it was, it was black and looked kind of like gum. Anyway that felt like it had been epoxied on there and took a good chunk of the finish with it when it popped off.
The rib is dented in several places and the barrels have white scratches in a number of places where it was hit off of drywall.
Screws all show signs that they were disassembled by someone using whatever driver was in hand, regardless of the fit.
The blueing in general is very worn.
From what I gather it was owned by someone who definitely used it but didn't necessarily care for it, and then it was stored improperly for a decade or more.
Thanks to the advice here I was able to get it disassembled and have all of the metal pieces basically soaking in oil at the moment. I was planning on using 0000 steel wool to go to work on some of the rust, but you kind folk convinced me to switch to frontier pads instead. My goal for right now is to get as much of the rest off as possible without further damaging the finish and engravings.
My questions to you guys are:
1. Anything that you could tell me about it that I missed or got wrong?
2. What would you guestimate current value at?
3. I know in general the rule is to not mess with the original finish of an antique gun, but am I wrong in thinking that the finish here is so rough that is not actually helping the value in any way?
4. I'd like to get it looking decent again, and am curious if you guys have any suggestions, particularly with the splotchy receiver. Also, I have 2 ultrasonic cleaners that I use (one for cleaning, one for oil) and figured they would be fine here, but wanted to make sure.
Thanks everyone!
