Fox Collectors

Jeff S wrote:On my way home from Hausmann's, I stopped at the Cabrela's in Dundee, MI. In the showcase I noticed a Fox Grade J trap gun with a very unfortunate stock. Maybe someone some one could get this gun acquainted with the letterman stock.

Hey Jeff,

You might consider a single shot shotgun for your duck hunting expeditions with your Dad and Nephew.

As per your very neat article in the Fox Newsletter, one shot would work out just fine for you.

Great article by the way and sure hope you three do it again this coming season in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Nice seeing you again this past weekend at HHH.

Jolly

Thanks Bill. It's always a pleasure to see you and your gun collection. Jeff

I saw that Fox w/o any numbers/markings and my thought was maybe it was a demo? OR, maybe an "employee special", sold to one of the employees at the factory?

BTW, Jeff, I had a blast shooting with you Thursday!! Thanks for playing.

Likewise Mike. I thoroughly enjoyed the shooting and I appreciated the free "coaching". That was my best round of clays ever.

Did the mystery Fox have "Ansley H. Fox" on the sides?

Jim Cloninger wrote:Did the mystery Fox have "Ansley H. Fox" on the sides?

It did not Jim. No serial numbers or marks anywhere on the gun.

Mike of the Mountain wrote:BTW, Jeff, I had a blast shooting with you Thursday!! Thanks for playing.

today

I shot a round of clays today without my mentor (Mike) and did quite poorly. I did okay at trap (23), but I clearly cannot shoot clays without Mike's guidance.

Looks like that wood is a bit similar to the D-Grade wood with the fleur-de-lis checkering pattern as shown in the 1913 catalog --
while the engraving is pretty much typical 1907-12 B-Grade --
except for that wonderful Parkeresque bead around the breech balls.

Anyone have any more pictures of that gun from different angles? Especially like to see from above to see how the top tang joins the receiver.

Did anyone buy that gun, he told me he would sell it. I took Kevin McCormick over to look at it

The Fox single at Cabela's is not a very good buy at $3495.00 needing a $2000.00 stock. Have you caught the Fox shotguns for sale on their website that state "Gauge cannot be determined, not marked."? Those guys are asleep at the wheel and still drawing a paycheck.

I didn't take any pictures from directly overhead to show how the rib joins the receiver, but got some different angled closeups as shown below. One thing that jumped out at me was the semi-elliptical 3/4 sphere of striped wood at the very rear of the checkering on the cheek panels. It struck me as spookily similar to the engraved "fan" of nearly identical shape on the side panels of the D-grade guns that appears towards the rear of the receiver as it joins the face of the stock. Agree with Dave about the checkering pattern(s) being a mix of the X-grade fleur-de-lis "points", but also notice the rounded orb carved & checked at the very end (base) of the pattern - this is nearly identical to some of the very early Parker Bros. graded hammer gun stock checkering patterns done during the ""clamshell" finishing of the ball grips of the early hammer guns. Finally, we laid this stock side by side with a minty F-grade stock Gary Herman had for sale and the pattern and layout matched almost identically. Some shots not in the best of focus but you get the idea......Kevin

Thanks for the additional pictures, Kevin.

The way the leading edge of the checkering panel is at an angle, rather then parallel with, the rear of the frame, leads me to think this stock may have been a take off from another gun and then fitted to this frame. I kind of see that checkering pattern as an evolutionary step from the 1913 D-/DE-Grade checkering to the later DE-Grade checkering.

The tangs should have been bent to make the checkering on the cheeks match properly with the receiver. Of course, in that time, the angle of the cheek checkering took a back seat to getting the stock on the gun.

Dave, a number of people advanced the same theory regarding the stock. In addition, Frank examined the milling cuts on the barrel flats under high magnification and pointed out some anomalies, probably resulting from refitting, supporting the notion several of us had that the barrels had come from another gun. Barrel length at 27 5/8 inches was another wild card; barrels engraved with the pure B grade pattern at the breech ends.