This rare A. H. Fox 20 gauge side-by-side shotgun is on Auction Arms right now. The auction ends on 06/01/2010 at 11:05:06 and there’s no reserve. Too bad the seller took such crummy pics.
This double barrel looks like an early C grade side-by-side shotgun. With 30″ barrels, this could be a real nice gun. The engraving is the first style C and Fox used those pull-off forends on early graded smallbores. I’ve seen others with them.
The wood is pretty worn, and it’s awfully plain for a C, but it looks unmessed with. The straight grips looks original too. Those barrels may have been reblued. Compared to the rest of the gun, they look real nice. The checkering on the butt stock is a little odd. It may be a bad picture, or because it’s an early gun. Compare it to the checkering on this 16 gauge C grade to see what I mean. This may be because this is a real early smallbore.
Fox introduced 16 gauges and 20 gauges in 1912. They had been making 12 gauge side-by-sides since 1906. Fox made 366 20-gauge C grades in Philadelphia and 47 in Utica. That means this is one of 413 C-grade 20 gauge guns.
Go page 135 in Michael McIntosh’s excellent book to read all about. Fox’s smallbores . You can buy McIntosh’s book here: A.H. Fox: The Finest Gun in the World. I recommend it.
I also suggest checking out the A.H. Fox collector’s site. There’s a ton of great info there.
