Fox Collectors

First, an introduction: I am a first year student in the gunsmithing program at Montgomery Community College in Troy, NC. This will be a second career. My background used to be in electronics/installations and some sales. I am a naturalized citizen and have been in the USA since 1997. My country of birth is South Africa.

I recently acquired a Fox CE grade in 12 ga. It was manufactured in 1920/21. It is not perfect but I will be using this for some of the projects I have to do at school. So far, I have identified the following issues:
I will need a new stock and fore end wood. The original wood had been refinished and there is almost no checkering left. The wood also does not fit flush with metal surfaces.
One of the springs in the selectable trigger mechanism is missing.
One of the sears was repaired (poorly) and the second one is not functioning correctly. This might be due to the trigger mechanism not working correctly.
The barrels were cut down to 25". The cut is also not square.
The left barrel sounds like it is loose. Not bad yet, but it will have to be redone.

Still, got this for a really good deal.

On to the pictures:









A few more pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/110116751572522828873/Fox#

One question I do have at this time:

I thought the stamped G would refer to the grade. Yet, from all I could see, this is a CE grade and all the other stampings confirms this. Is this normal?

Like to see some close up pic of that single trigger. Like to see some pic after. Good luck with her.. Donnie

#26??? what serial # is on the barrels and forend? Id like to see some pics of the underside of the forend as well. Neat!

Neil, welcome to the forum. I hope I'm wrong but it looks like the last three digits of the serial number were removed from the frame. It's hard to tell without a magnifier but it seems there are some imperfections on the frame bar in that area. If so, you may want to check on the legalities. Also, looks like the C stamp was changed into a G with a tiny punch; the crossbar on the G doesn't look "square". How about the numbers and letter stamp on the bottom of the barrels? How do you know this is a 1920-21 Fox? Silvers

Thanks everyone. Looks like my photoshop skills are not too bad. I removed the last 3 digits from the serial number in the pictures as they were also posted to other forums. The full serial number is 26454. All the numbers match on other parts of this shotgun. Even the stock. I have not yet but do intend to join AHFCA and send of a letter verifying the original build specification.

I will also try to take some more pictures this week showing how the stock mates to the frame.

IMO, not a good way to start out here. It would have been better to let people know you obliterated the last digits, and to refrain from altering the grade stamp. Otherwise ya got guys like me spending/wasting time replying to a spoofed up post. OK, so now I'm gonna tell ya, your pics show one more issue on that Fox. And I'm not trying to spoof you. Silvers

Silvers wrote:IMO, not a good way to start out here. It would have been better to let people know you obliterated the last digits, and to refrain from altering the grade stamp. Otherwise ya got guys like me spending/wasting time replying to a spoofed up post. OK, so now I'm gonna tell ya, your pics show one more issue on that Fox. And I'm not trying to spoof you. Silvers

My apologies, it was not my intention to cause confusion with the serial number and yes, I probably should have stated that. The only alterations I did on the pictures was to remove the last 3 numbers from the applicable picture. The serial numbers on all the pieces match and the grade stamp is a "C" on all of them except for the frame. And I would really like to know what the other issue is.

Looks as though it may haves some ejector issues. Are both guide pins there? Looks like some significant galling on the ejector lump that protrudes from the frame knuckle in your last pic.