About 40 years ago I went to work in a gun shop with a verbal that it would be sold to me the next year. One of the owners deals was that he didn't want to work the counter anymore & that I take care of anything I could before coming to the office to bother him.
A couple guys came in one slow morning & wanted to know if I could apprise some Browning shotguns. Sure, I said, Brownings being very collectable at the time & were well documented, just open a couple picture books.
The two guys started carrying in Browning hard luggage, & lining them up on the counters. About 10-12 guns as I recall. They were all Belgian Superposed over/unders. Pigeon, Diana & Midas grades. Two barrel sets, or 2 & 4 gauge sets. When the research started, we realized that none of them matched the standard high end deluxe grades listed. All exceeded their grade in both extra engraving & gold embellishments. Uncatalogued stuff, off the charts so to speak. All, of course were mint.
I went to the boss & told him he needed to come out front. He asked if I couldn't handle it? I told him that I doubted he could, but he just had to see this. We could only ballpark the numbers for the bunch, but $200K was thrown about. That group of guns was nearly worth double the entire inventory of the shop, & it was a pretty big gun shop at the time.
I've been to a lot of shows & national shoots since then, & with inflation it's not hard to see stuff like that. & of that value often. But 40 years ago, that collection was a sight to see.
