How long have you been collecting/shooting Foxes?

[MilRob]

How long have you been shooting/collecting or just hunting with Foxes and how old are you?

I am 33 and bought my first Fox 1.5 years ago

[3birddogs]

Milrob,
I am 58, and was probably 33 when I bought my first Fox, a 16ga Sterlingworth Deluxe for $350 around 1986. Then I picked up an A grade 16. Currently have 6 Foxes:
Sterlingworth Deluxe 16
Sterlingworth 16 (Utica)
2 Sterlingworth 20's (Utica's)
A grade 16
The Sterlingworth Co. 12 ga pin gun w/ 4 wt barrels
Always hard to decide what to carry when I go hunting, but you can't make a bad decision.

[bbman3]

Bought my first Fox a CE 20 in 1968 for $350.00 shiipped to me from Iowa.Soon be 72! Wow!!!! Bobby

[Researcher]

Bought my first Fox, a 12-gauge, 3-inch, HE-Grade Super-Fox, in 1963, when I was 17. Bought my second, an A-grade, 12-gauge, 28-inch, straight gripped, bird gun in 1966, when I was 20. Opening weekend 1966, limit of ducks with the Super and first Pheasant with the A-Grade --



That was it for the next 11 years, I hunted with my two Ansley H. Fox doubles. Shot Skeet with Model 12/42s, Model 1100s and finally a Model 3200. Then in 1977, I bought a 12-gauge SPE-Grade Skeet & Upland Game Gun and it has been all down hill since then.

Shot three Pheasants with the A-Grade today, but didn't take any pictures out in the mud and foot deep old wet snow!!

[Fin2Feather]

I bought my first Fox shotgun at age 50. I turned 66 a week ago and now I own four. Not a collector; just a guy who enjoys shooting with what to me just feels like a shotgun ought to feel. Will I own any others? Who knows; I'll just see where the ride takes me. So far it's been a lot of fun.

[Stan Hillis]

I looked for a Sterlingworth for years before being offered and buying a nice 30" !2 ga. Philly model about 1998. Bought a 32" A grade 12 ga. w/3" chambers about 3 years later, a 32" 12 ga. HE with 3" chambers about two years after that, am in the middle of building a 32" 12 ga. A grade from a Philly receiver and a set of new Utica barrels, and just got a 32" BE 12 ga. about three weeks ago.

Sure would like to find some long barreled ones.

Stan

[loggy]

I got my first fox about fifteen years ago. It was also a Superfox. I am sixty four now. I have an AE twelve gauge with thirty two inch barrels that is my go to gun.

[kgb]

Probably 1998 I bought a Phila Sterlingworth 16 which was very light with lots of drop at heel. It didn't recoil as harshly as I'd have guessed and was great for shooting skeet gun-up, but as a field gun just wasn't right for me. I kept it less than two years. Last year I bought a Utica Sterlingworth 16 and while it's just over 6 1/4lbs the dimensions are much better although it required some fill-in of the cheek where a previous owner customized it. So far just one prairie chicken to its credit but some time on a shooting preserve and gunning at a hunt test are on the schedule.

Got an XE 16ga on order in Connecticut. Trying to figure out what to have engraved on the bottom. Gamebirds on the sides and would like crows for the bottom....integrated somehow with a Fox?

Nebraska Prairie Chicken

[fullchoke16]

In 1982 my dear grandfather left his 16 ga. Utica Steringworth since I was the only double gun enthusiast amongst the grandsons. A collector is a guy that has more guns than he really needs and with that in mind, I guess that I can call myself a collector. I do shoot and enjoy them all but I have killed a truck load of ringnecks plus a few grouse and woodcock with Paps gun. I recently turned 60.

[fullchoke16]

kgb, That is a great Ed Zern quote. He was one of my favorites. Fred

[ROMAC]

I have had as many a 8 at one time, now I am down to 4. An A, B, XE in 12 gauge and a 16 gauge Sterlingworth. I have had a thing for Foxes since I was a kid but dad bought me an Ithaca 37 for Christmas when I was 15 and that is pretty much all I used until I was about 30. I went through all the hoops and had al the permits I needed to buy guns in the Peoples Republic of New Jersey after college but my world opened up after moving to Pennsylvania when I got married. Private sales in the want ads, guns stores with great selection etc....

Anyway, living about 45 minutes from where the original factory was (and still is although the additions were torn down a bout 2 years ago) there are a decent amount of Foxes in circulation in this area. The area also is convenient to some great waterfowling along the Delaware river, and the Chesapeake and Barnegat Bays are about an hour and a half away. There seems to be a good amount Foxes in peoples closets around here. I wish I could go back and buy some ofthe ones I saw when funds were a lot tighter. There is a certain 20 gauge AE with 30 inch barrels and a 20 gauge SPE that both still keep me awake at night each for less than $1,000 about 10 years ago.

I'm just hoping that as the population continues to age that grandfathers old double makes its way out of the closet and into my hands a few more times. I like buying the crusty ones with 40 years worth of dust on them, you can worry less about somebody having messed with it.

[waterman]

I bought my first Fox in the spring of 2003 a 32" HE straight grip. I was 32 years old. Now ten years later at 42 I have eleven along with some LC Smith, Parkers. Donnie

[fox-admin]

I bought my first Fox in 1994 from "Never a Screw Turned" out of Pennsylvania. It was a bad experience but I kept at it.
My uncle who introduced me to waterfowl hunting in 1967 shot a 30" Fox CE until steel shot came along. That's what lit my fire for Fox guns.
I have focused my collection on waterfowl type gun as a extension of my love for duck hunting.
I enjoy collecting "used but not abused" examples in original condition to high/mint condition.

[DarylC]

Bought my first Fox about 5 years ago. A Philly sterlingworth, 12ga. 30" pretty much standard gun for $500. Since then I've added 2 A grades, 1 BE all in 12ga., 16ga deluxe and a 20ga. sterly. I'll be 63 later this month so I've got some catching up to do.

[Don Ay]

For myself it seems doubles were always around thats what dads,uncles,buddys all shot, when things were slow in the blind seemed like when the talk came to guns it was of Parkers or "Philly Foxes"...had to be a "Philly Fox" for some reason, maybe it was cause a lot of them grew up with in 20 mis. of Ansley"s last address I don't know.
In 1980 when I was 16 I bought a nice used 1940's era Fox model B not a "Philly Fox" but a Fox by name, used that one till steel shot was a total "law of the land" ....in 1995 thu, between the intro bismuth shot, my uncle giving me his collection Double Gun Journals, and a 12 ga. Sterlingworth on the self of the local gun shop I was on my way collecting "Philly Foxes".And then of course my wife gave me the Macintosh book for christmas....so being the lover of history I am and especially duck gunnin , I wore out the pages in the "Super Fox" chapter..I knew where I was heading, and a few months latter found a nice one and I had a "lottery ticket" for it too boot...for whatever reason it left Philly with no grade stamp,and the gun shop owner said "its a big heavy A grade,but in good shape and I'm firm on the price".. the going price for a A grade in 1997? not alot, since those days were before what the internet now is with forums and associations and all, I called and talked to Mr. Kidd just to make sure what I found was indeed what I thought it was, and learned alot with that one call.
Along the way I've found a couple more HE's.. one in 20 ga. have some A grades and a 16ga. Sterlingworth for the bob whites.
And like a lot of the guys here I've had my ones that got away too...those "day late and dollar short guns",or "I coulda shudda parted with the cash" the search for them, is most of the fun I do believe