Fox Collectors

This morning I walked into a local gun shop and found a Philadelphia Gun Company shotgun, which is a B Grade in 12 ga. The gun is in good condition and shows usage, but not abuse. The only real marks are from the gunsmith own worked on it. The old double gun has serial #1334 on the receiver and barrel flat, but not on the forearm iron. The forearm has serial #924. Both the receiver and forearm iron were stamped with a letter B. The forearm lever and end cap look just like a Parker. The gun is on consignment and is listed for $2,500. The barrels are 30" long, externally they're very smooth with no pitting, but the barrels have been re-blued. Internally the bores are perfect. The receiver is nicely engraved with quail and the word FOX on both sides. The receiver screws are marred and one side has a pin sticking out slightly from the receiver. The only case colors left is under the lever. The right side of the lever has a really neat star burst design. The length pull is 14", but that includes a 3/8" black plastic spacer plus a extremely old red Pachmayr recoil pad. The receiver to stock fitting has many old chips, indicating that at some time that the stock was removed. The metal work is in really good shape considering it's age. Questions: Is this gun a good candidate for restoring? If yes, what would be the typical cost by a middle price range restoration shop? What year was this gun made? I'm thinking about 1904. And what approximate value would the completely restored / restocked gun have?

I'm always willing to throw my two cents at something... unfortunately... its not often worth $.02

It sounds to me like a GREAT candidate for restoration... that said... be a great candidate for restoration at about $500-$1000. Also depends on how much barrel wall thickness is left and if there is any choke left in the gun.

a middle of the road restoration with all new wood, new blue, case color, engravign touch-up, etc etc... going to run you probably close to $2500 when its all said and done... so at the current price, you would likely be lucky if you were done with the gun at $5000... and it would be worth about $2000-$3000. It could be done for less if you shop around and find a nice piece of walnut, fill the chips in your gun and have a decent shop duplicate the original for you. There was a B grade for sale many year ago with a bad restock and the asking price was over $4k... but ppl can ask whatever they want.

Just my guesses... B grade PAC guns are very rare... announcing it for sale publicly here may have even sent the vultures a shoppin'... I've never seen anything but A grades for sale publicly in the last 2 years or so. OF the 55 PAC guns I have records on, this is the 5th B grade.

Is it a full pistol grip or straight stock? Is the trigger tang serialized as well?

Restoration is expensive if done well. Just replacing the stock will cost at least 2K IMO and that doesn't cost a nice blank to throw on it. Also to do it right its going to have to be recasecolored, which will necessitate having the engraving picked back up. Long story short you would be looking at circa 4K to have a decent job. Turnbull will charge more for sure and he is the current gold standard it seems. Anyway, throw the $2,500 dollar asking price on top and your now up to $6,500. It might be worth that to you, but you will never be able to move it down the road if you want to IMO. Above is of course assuming the barrels are real good and don't have any hidden issues. You might have something special when you get done, but its a long expensive road to get there.

A Savage Fox, thanks for the feedback. And your comments were definitely worth more than 2 cents. I especially like the insight into checking up on the barrel wall thickness and the amount of choke left. Looking at the $2,500 initial cost caused me to hit the brakes too. The gun locks up very solid with the level in the center position. The wood has very few marks and just a couple of dents. Aside from the three screws on the bottom the receiver is in great shape. The engraved shore bird (not really a quail) is towards the back side of the receiver, just after the word FOX. The bird is placed inside a circle. There's much more engraving on this receiver compare to an early model A.H. Fox A or B grade guns. Overall it's not a bad field gun. The gun has a pistol grip stock. And yes, the trigger tang also has a 1334 serial number engraved.
VA Turkey, I also appreciate your reply. Your points are very well taken and what I was afraid of. And like you said, the end product would never be worth the money spent. The lure of preserving a nice old PAC like this is a hard urge to resist. But for now, I'll just keep an eye on her and see what happens to the sales price. The gun shop has the gun listed as a Parker-Fox shotgun, based on the forearm metal works, barrel release lever. So they are thinking it's a high dollar gun.

if you really have interest in the gun and bringing it back to life... you might see if a few other ppl will comment here on what they think its worth before and after and the cost in between... and then direct the cosigner here and see if they are willing to take a legitimate offer... sounds to me like someone got Grandpa's old shotgun, had no idea what it was and consigned it hoping to "strike it rich" Bring them down to earth and see if they are a reasonable person... some are not...
there is a two barrel XE consigned at my local Cabelas for around $26,000. The last few I saw sell (all two barrel sets) sold well under $10K.

All in all this sounds like a pretty good gun to just leave alone. The buggered screws are an easy fix by a competent gunsmith and inexpensive Galazan sells the complete Fox screw set for $15.00 and a gunsmith should be able to fit them in an hour. You can buy the Silvers recoil pad whick would be correct for this periodof gun from Galazan or the manufacturer in England and fitting to your gun should be about an hours labor. The misaligned pin can be centered at the same time the trigger plate screws are fitted and any gunsmith worth of salt would do that as a courtesy.

By the way the $2,500.00 is the asking price make a standing offer $2,200.00 and see what happens in a few weeks.

the screws on a PAC gun are completely different from those on a philly Fox. Not sure the "kit" from Galazan would do you much good but he does sell a number of screws "in the raw"

If you would post a few pictures of this gun, maybe we could give you a better idea of its condition and potential. I paid $1795 to a stubborn seller many years ago for a B Grade PAC gun. Our friend Researcher and I both agreed it was a ridiculous price for a field used B Grade. Today I'm very happy to own it. It has not been restored, nor do I think restoration would improve it.

ASavageFox wrote:the screws on a PAC gun are completely different from those on a philly Fox. Not sure the "kit" from Galazan would do you much good but he does sell a number of screws "in the raw"

Sorry A Sav Fox you are correct about the PAC gun screws being different but again a good engraver such as Ken Hurst can clean up the screw heads or if necessary a good gunsmith/machinist with a lathe can turn out new screws and fit them at probably $20.00 each.

Eightbore, I'll need to go back to the gun shop with my camera and snap some picture. The shop is closed on Sunday / Monday, so will need to wait until mid-week.

Busy week, so I didn't get a chance to snap some pictures until today. The Fox Collectors site requires a photobucket account before you can post pictures. I created a photobucket site and then I tried to insert the picutes, but when I included the photobucket url between the bracketed image delimiters all I ended up with is "X's" inside of boxes. Therefore select my photobucket link below and have a look at the pictures.

http://s779.photobucket.com/albums/yy76 ... CN7587.jpg

Use each photos "Direct Link" between a pair of the img

The price is way off...................... but thanks for sharing the interesting gun.

I'm pretty sure the screws on the trigger plate are different then mine... pretty sure both of my A grades have 4 screws... two on each side.. but will have to look next time I get a chance....