That I wouldn't doubt for a second.First tip off for me is "professionally refurbished". If that Whelen carbine had factory documentation it would be worth about $20,000.No one ould be selling it for $3k if it were real,refinished or not.
But some odd stuff came through the Winchester Custom shop.Then as now, there were lots of rifle nuts who were never satisfied with anything standard;seemed the custom shop would build what you wanted.
Mentioned this before, but over a decade ago I walked into a high end gun store and saw a pre war standard grade in 405 Winchester with factory documentation. It was one of two and no one knew where the second one was.I was still skeptical but looked it up in Rule,and it is footnoted somewhere in there.
For awhile I owned an original Super Grade 264 standard weight that I bought cheap because no one thought it was real, but only because it was not supposed to have been made(they never cataloged a SG 264 WM). But the guy who owned it was just a NH gun buyer who owned it a long time,and had no incentive to fabricate a phony. He was also dead when I bought it.I suspected it was a CS rifle.
Then, sure enough, I saw a picture of one in Whittaker's book.So you never know what they cranked out on request.It's what makes collecting interesting but it's all too treacherous for me.
