Fox Collectors

I don't know how I forgot to mention my PAC B grade with 32" barrels and a straight grip. It's a cross between a Parker and a Fox. Shoots more like a Fox than a Parker though.

I bought my first Fox in the early seventies, a stone mint 30" extractor Sterlingworth with a Pachmayr pad, for maybe $125, in the Winchester VA show parking lot. I traded it for a high condition16 gauge VHE Remington Parker with a cut stock, original cut piece neatly replaced. It was a nice Parker, but I sold it to a fellow in Alabama through a Shotgun News ad for $450. I wish I had both of them back. I could tell you about my collection of Foxes, but a description of the ones that got away would be much more interesting, like a few really great Becker guns, a 20 gauge HE, an XHE, and on and on. I am a big gun guy, so I won't even mention the little ones. My gun show buddy bought a BE 20 from a dealer's table for $1400 while I was maybe fifty feet behind, probably looking at a rusty Sterlingworth. I am four years older than my friend, Daryl, who posted earlier. I always thought I was younger than Daryl!

Geez,

I'm 57. Never touched a Fox or heard much about them until I wandered into my first one about ten years ago. 16 gauge A grade (33 rd one made). I bought it from a dealer who has now passed in Front Royal Va, who had it mismarked as a Sterlingworth (it has early engraving and the snap on forearm). Armed with that one and fascinated by its lightness (5 lb 10 ounce) I bought Mike M. book on Foxes and the game was on. Had one custom gun on a 12 gauge SW ejector platform (just about completed) and another custom 20 in the works. Have an early Pin gun that was a fixer upper. Two 16 gauge Sterlingworths with long barrels (one 30" the other 32"), one 20 gauge SW ejector with a beavertail and a real nice early A grade 12 with Ejectors. Have found them here and there and always have my ears and eyes open. I've gotten bitten more then once on buying guns that weren't as they were described and have gotten a bit smarter over the years. I've got a Parker or two (or three) as well, but Foxes are my favorite go to gun. Sold every modern shotgun I have except for a couple of turkey guns and thinking really hard about just going the sxs route for turkey's as well. My dream gun is a nice 20 gauge C grade original gun that fits me and is choked right for Grouse/Woodcock.

My first Fox came in '82 from the Philadelphia family of the original owner. It is a 30" B 12. Hadn't been fired since WW2 as the owner lost his hunting grounds right after the war. The Philadelphia airport is on that ground now. I still have this gun.

Two years later I acquired a Savage Sterlingworth 16. I carried that gun exclusively until the nontoxic rules were passed.

About 25 yrs ago I was in a store which specializes in modern competition guns. When I walked in I noticed a homely A grade in the wigwam style rack on the floor with the other lesser guns. On the way out I had to pick it up as it was the only Fox in the store. It was the heaviest Fox I had encountered. Yep, another overweight 32" HE 2 3/4" with an A grade price.

xewizzard wrote:About 25 yrs ago I was in a store which specializes in modern competition guns. When I walked in I noticed an ugly A grade in the wigwam style rack on the floor with the other lesser guns. On the way out I had to pick it up as it was the only Fox in the store. Yep, another overweight 32" HE 2 3/4" with an A grade price.

True stories like that are a lot of the reason I keep looking!

Stan

i bought my first fox at a yard sale ($150.pin gun)about ten years ago i now have 15 . i am 53 years old and i do about 80 % of my hunting with fox double the other20% is with winchester mod.12

It's interesting to me the number of people who have responded so far that have HE's! Don Ay, I'd sure like to see some pictures of that HE 20ga, man what a gun that must be. What length are your barrels?

I'm 37 years old, and I started collecting Foxes less than two years ago. My love for them started much earlier than that, hunting squirrels, rabbits and doves with my Dad and his A Grade 20ga which was passed down by his Father. Since August of 2011 I've bought 8 Foxes, and I'm not stopping there! The first Fox I purchased was a Gun Show find, a nicely restored early A Grade 12ga. Since then I've acquired five Sterlingworths, a 20ga, three 16ga's, and a 12ga project gun. I've also got a 12ga XE/CE Hybrid and an early 12ga CE. A 16ga Sterlingworth and the CE are my go to bird guns. The rest I shoot off and on at Sporting Clays. On the wish list are a higher grade 20ga with 30in or 32in barrels, a 32in HE, and something with a straight grip! I enjoy the hunt for Foxes almost as much as hunting with Foxes.

Mike

My late father bought me my first A.H. Fox gun in early November of 1964 at a hardware store on Main St. in Kutztown, PA. It was a 26" 16 gauge Philadelphia Sterlingworth in beautiful shape. He traded my first shotgun, a 16g Savage 220B single shot for it and $30. We had both shot pheasants that morning and I was 13. He thought I was ready for "a real gun". I have owned Fox shotguns ever since...among far too many others... I shot my first ruffed grouse and woodcock with that gun later that same month on my maternal grandfather's farm in New Hampshire. It was deadly on rabbits. The pa'tridge and the timberdoodle were quite unlucky...if only my Dad had known about drop at the heel...I would have shot more birds!

Am I a Fox collector? I don’t know. I might be. I’ve had my first, and so far only, Fox since October of 2012. We had a rather curious beginning, she and I. Walking out of the gun shop where I traded for her, stepping down onto the sidewalk, I did a misstep, and jammed the barrels (the gun was in a gunslip) into the sidewalk, which in turn, jammed the butt into my ribs, and caused me to do a cartwheel onto the sidewalk on my back. Result, was a slightly dented and scraped tip on the right tube of the gun, and a cracked rib (mine, not the Fox’s). Took the gun to Custom Stocks and Steel, and Dan fixed it perfectly, in the process fitting the gun to me with some stock bending. Took it out to shoot some clays with some friends, and while sitting on the back of the SUV, chatting with some friends and playing with the lever, that Foxy lady saw an opportunity to pay me back for my mistreating her. She somehow managed to put the inside of my forearm between the barrels and the receiver and closed, tearing a big chunk of my skin and raising one heck of a welt. I think I’m going to wear that scar for a mighty long time. Somehow that was an auspicious beginning, though, for she has rewarded me with some really good strings on clays, and on her first outing for pheasants (under my stewardship), performed just beautifully. Caused me to fall in love with Foxes. She’s a little heavy at 7 1/4 lbs, so now I’m looking for a light grouse gun. 16 or 20 ga, 28” barrels, right around 6 lbs, imp cyl, and light mod. A Fox, of course. Dan is seriously tempting me with a custom build on a SW platform, but maybe a CE could do the trick. A Fox collector? Maybe. I’m 69 years young, so I’m looking forward to hunting grouse with a proper gun for that. Somehow a Fox is needed to satisfy that itch.

Dalgo wrote: She somehow managed to put the inside of my forearm between the barrels and the receiver and closed, tearing a big chunk of my skin and raising one heck of a welt. I think I’m going to wear that scar for a mighty long time.

You'll be right in style these days with that Fox "tattoo"!

Just bought my first. It's an A model from 1910 choked IC/IM. I'm looking forward to next grouse season. I had just sold a Lefever Nitro Special that I had cleaned up to a friend who needed an inexpensive shotgun. I made a modest profit but kind of regretted selling my only SxS. I have several O/U. I was surfing the net and fell into the spell of the A.H. Fox A model in tight condition and still with a reasonable finish. After finding this forum I think the disease has taken hold. I blame each and everyone of you! I just found another I'm looking at. I've set a goal to have a 12 (my A model), a 16 (graded?), a 20 (graded?) and perhaps an HE. I love goose hunting too!

Best times and best guns,

Dave

When I was in highschool/college during the late 1950's, there was a pawn shop in the block where the new FBI headquarters
now sits named Max Zwig Co. - such a gun shop no longer exists-it was wonderful, full of everybodys shotguns. Some of you older DC and MD folks could have heard of it; they later phased out of classic guns and moved out to Bethesda. Anyway, I traded my first shotgun, an ancient 12 ga Parker G for my first Fox, a 16 ga Sterlingworth, about 1958. I grew up and lived in northern VA until 2001, in a dairy cow area full of double guns and quail, adjacent to many, many gun shows when they were real gun shows. Again, some of you DC area people will remember some of what I do. I have many marvelous gun related rememberances from the east coast

I probably have owned 50 good or bad Fox guns. At 75, I still have 10 or so, generally older low number guns. It would be rare for me to buy a gun now, and I concentrate on my Fox paper collection. I'll confess to my treachery in your midst; if I go afield, I use a Parker. Its a 20 ga P grade with 26" fluid steel barrels-a little heavier than most Foxes; bought it in excellent condition in about 1988 from "Never had a Screw Turned", after he bought it for $500 less from a widow's advertisment in NC.

I've really enjoyed these mini-biographys, and wish more would contribute.

Ed Farrand Weston, MO-Thats about 10 miles north of KCI and directly across the river from Leavenworth.

Fin2Feather wrote,

You'll be right in style these days with that Fox "tattoo"!

Glad to see I'm not unique in the "bite" department! Of course, now that I think of it, I am a Fox collector! I now have collected 2 Fox gifts: a cracked rib (long healed), and a tattoo (scar). Have to off-set that with some more real Foxes.

200052, I remember the Max Zweig store at 937 D Street NW, almost next door to Tendler's Sales at 913, a better store than Zweigs. My Dad bought an AYA from Tendler's in 1961 and I bought a new Model 70 from them a couple of years later. Simon Atlas's store was on the corner of 9th and D, at the end of the same block. I have also a working acquaintance with "Never a Screw Turned", bought one gun from him over the years. An ailing neighbor of mine, just a hop over the corn, has a safe full of guns from Mr. Turned. My neighbor is not in good shape and the guns may be recycled in the not too distant future. Nice to hear your recollections of the gun trade in DC. Bill Murphy

Bought my first Fox in the mid eighties. I'm 71 so I got a late start. Bought or traded my way through probably 20 more. Some I should have kept and some I was lucky to have sold. There are 11 in the safe now--all but one are 30 or 32" guns in 12ga, 16ga, and 20ga. They are all hunted or shot regularly.If not they don't stay. I don't think of myself as a collector but rather as a shooter and for me nothing compares to a Fox.
Jim