Fox Collectors

This is to alert Foxophiles everywhere that 'Eightbore' Bill Murphy and I will reprise our HE Superfox display of 3 years ago once again at the "Old Baltimore Show". aka the Maryland Arms Collectors Show (MACA), to be held this year Saturday & Sunday 18 & 19 March, respectively. The show is located at the Cow Palace at the MD State Fairgrounds at Timonium MD, and is open 9AM-5PM Saturday and 9AM-3PM Sunday to the public.

We are posting this advance announcement because when we did this display 3 years ago we didn't give much of an alert, and there was selective 'weeping and gnashing of teeth' amonst Fox Fanatics everywhere. This year's display will be sufficiently different from last time's and will certainly be worth your while to view. Be sure to come by our tables (B-4 & 5) and check out these impressive HEs! Just to pique everyone's interest, Messsrs. Becker, Buckingham, and Bartholomew will be amply represented!! Thanks to all, Kevin & Bill

GREAT NEWS, Kevin!! The BOD's response is below. Wish I could attend, it would be the perfect venue for a hands-on, digital picture posting tutorial with "Eightbore." Most have given up hope, but not this tenacious Sicilian.

OK guys let's see some pictures. Any new Fox guns discovered at the show.

fox-admin wrote:OK guys let's see some pictures. Any new Fox guns discovered at the show.

Agree. I was up in Pa this past weekend and didn't get to attend and as such my eye candy fix needs to be from Kevin M.

Kevin and Bill's display was great. The standout to me was the 32" 20 HE.

I also saw an AE 20 that looked to me to be unfired. I could be wrong but it sure looked cherry to me. The face of the breech was pristine and I would rate the gun with 100% wood and metal. I know Tom W. was there so maybe he will chime in with his opinion. Saw a 20 ga. SW, 26", IC/F that was fairly nice but it had the stock cheeks checkered and the forend had a diamond inletted for some reason and a screw was missing in the iron. It also had a swivel attached to the bottom rib. Other than that not much in the way of Fox guns. Still a good show and lots to see.

Thanks for the kind words Daryl! Lots of people looked at the display and there were many positive comments; all very gratifying to hear after all the effort Bill and I put into it. I would agree with Daryl regarding the AE 20 - a Fox smallbore showing incredible finish, probably unfired - a real stunner! It went home with the dealer at the end of the show. (Another very nice AE 20, this one a 26" gun, was coaxed out of the trunk of a walk-in's car and went home with us).
All in all not a very "Foxy" show but a great one overall as usual with lots of familiar faces and great conversations. Attached are a few photos of our display.

Hey Kevin, It was good to see you and Tom the display was well done to say the least. Many thanks for taking time to go into detail about all the Supers. Judy could not believe that one was sold out of Smoketown,Pa. All and all a very good experience.

Tell us more about the guns on display, looks like a couple of straight grips. Very nice looking display thank you very much for your efforts. It takes much time and effort to put a nice display together. It is nice you got an opportunity to buy a nice 20ga Fox. People ask me all the time where do you find Fox guns, one good place to start is doing a display at well attended gun show or helping man our booth at a shooting event.

WOW!! I'll second Craig's comments. Superbly executed!! That must have generated some serious traffic? Thanks to both of you for your efforts that reflect so favorably on the AHFCA!

fox-admin wrote:Tell us more about the guns on display, looks like a couple of straight grips. Very nice looking display thank you very much for your efforts. It takes much time and effort to put a nice display together. It is nice you got an opportunity to buy a nice 20ga Fox. People ask me all the time where do you find Fox guns, one good place to start is doing a display at well attended gun show or helping man our booth at a shooting event.

I had a detailed post describing the guns but somehow it got eaten when I went thru my picture resizing and posting process, so will do it here now again for everyone:

The first two guns pictured in the right-handed angle shot of the table are straight grip guns; the front one is the 32" HE 3" that we purchased from Don Kaas at the NE SxS a couple of years ago; its a restock job, well done, with Becker style comb and ivory forend tip insert. It cards out of very late Savage inventory. The gun behind it is the now-iconic "lightweight' Becker #1 frame 32" HE 3" built for Henry Bartholomew (this is the "Smoketown gun" referred to by Fritz in his post above). The gun behind Henry's gun is the 32" HE 20 gauge 3" pistol grip.

In the left-handed angle shot of the table, the rearmost gun is another 12 ga HE 3" 32" pistol grip gun; in front of that is also a 32" HE 3" pistol grip, pretty much a "plain Jane" HE (if there is such a thing!) that cards out of early Savage inventory. The gun up in front of that is Bill Murphy's recently-acquired Buckingham, Ensley & Carrigan-carded gun, which his research so far all but concludes that this is the gun wrote about after testing John Olin's original HE prototype with the new Super-X ammo wherein he said.."I lost no time in acquiring my own 10-pound Becker Magnum..."

While this was essentially the same display theme Bill and I exhibited 2 years ago, there were some new additions and a few tweaks designed to pique interest in the revised setup: a small portrait picture of Burt Becker at age 85 taken in 1956 (see Tom Kidd's DGJ article, "Burt Becker's Best", Vol 3 Issue 4 of Double Gun Journal), also a first-shown picture of Henry Bartholomew and Nash Buckingham sitting on the front porch of Henry's decoy shed at his Potomac Valley Farm near Indian Head MD, holding (of all things) scope-sighted varmint rifles! (They were probably shooting groundhogs off he long sloping hill that led down to the duck blinds).

There is no doubt that a themed display (Fox or otherwise) helps to "coax" guns out of the woodwork, trunks of cars, nearby closets, etc. People naturally gravitate to a source familiar to them, if nothing more than to learn more about something they own or are interested in owning. For me, it is an educational driving force in doing displays, coupled with the desire to provide the opportunity for people who would never have a chance to see an HE 20 gauge or a Nash Buckiingham or Henry Bartholomew gun. It was a good show and gave us a great deal of satisfaction to share these guns and their histories with others. Thanks, Kevin & Bill

Great job Kevin and Bill! I, for one, would like to see close up pictures of the HE 20 gauge, and the Nash Buckiingham gun, and the Henry Bartholomew gun.
Jim

Jim, I think I can still access all 3 guns for photos - let me see what I can come up with. Thx, K.

My research seems to connect about three owners of the 20 gauge in line back to Henry Bartholomew and possibly to Nash Buckingham or his friend (is it Hal Howard?) Nothing positive yet, and possibly Kevin has more to offer. We don't get a lot of time to discuss these things at shows. Believe it or not, three days behind the display and I never looked at or handled Henry Bartholomew's lightweight HE.

Gentlemen,
Great display and thanks for sharing with all of us that weren't at the Maryland show!!

Below are some photos of the HEs displayed at the MACA show in March for your viewing pleasure.....