Fox Collectors

What does original case colors look like on fox sterlingworth?Also where they bone charcoal or cynide?Does anyone have any pictures.

Here you go..you can access these pics from the home page of this site.
http://foxcollectors.com/sw%20grade.htm

Pretty much from WW-I on they were cynide. A few knowledgeable customers may have specified bone on graded guns in later years. The Cynide colors seem to come in two styles. The outer guns have what some of us refer to as the "mountain range style" and I've never heard a particular name for the middle gun's colors.

On the guns in the pics above, all the forend irons are case hardened.

But on this Sterlie, the forend iron is blued:

http://foxcollectors.com/sw%20grade.htm

Why is there this difference?

Did Fox blue the forend irons on Sterlies with ejectors and case harden the ones on non-ejector guns?

Is it a time thing - they did cased-hardened earlier ones, blued later ones?

Or is it something else?

Thanks

OWD

Whether Fox blued or case hardened the forearm furniture seems to be a time period thing. My Sterlingworths from 1910 thru 1922 have blued irons. The next two I have are 1928 and they are case colored, a 12-gauge extractor gun and a 16-gauge ejector gun. The Savage-era guns pictured are two extractor and one ejector.

In graded guns it seems to get really hit or miss as to whether forearm irons are blued or case colored. I know a C-grade two-barrel set that has one of each.

My 1913 SW has a case colored forend iron.