To restore a collectible Winchester or not?|Page 4|Restoration, Repair and Maintenance|Forum|Winchester Collector

I think your Branch 3 folks are an especially discriminating subset of Branch 2. 

The “slightly used” condition 1873 Winchesters are getting mighty expensive. 

Bert H. said

Zebulon said
I think your Branch 3 folks are an especially discriminating subset of Branch 2. 
The “slightly used” condition 1873 Winchesters are getting mighty expensive. 
  

Maybe… but I am squarely in the “Branch 3” category, but I do not strictly adhere to just the “slightly used” condition.  I find the 75% to 95% condition guns to be the most desirable for my collection.
Bert
  

I agree 75% to 95% is the sweet spot for collectible guns you can use without diminishing their condition. In some cases, a permanent alteration — say, a non-factory recoil pad and squared-off buttstock — on an otherwise very high condition gun, while supposedly cutting its value “in half”, can put it within my reach. Everybody finds his own balance and sometimes what the market thinks is just irrelevant to what’s important to me. 

martin rabeno said
Ok  Here’s a question for you to ponder. It might be just be theoretical or real.
You are given a stripped down 1783 rifle frame and lower tang.  Serial number list it as a 1 of 1000 with the letter and a history of past owners.  Do you restore or not?
  

That, Martin, is a law professor’s ” hypothetical” posed to a classroom. It has no right answer. 

Here’s my two cents. Despite what GCA ’68 and the Code of Federal Regulations say, that’s not a gun, it’s a gun part. It was (presumably) once the frame of an especially selected rifle but is nothing special itself, now. The Cody Museum likely has no interest in displaying it nor would most serious Winchester collectors want to buy it for the purpose of displaying it. 

If Bloatus Q. Moneybags wants to hire, e.g. Doug Turnbull and his crew to make a new replica One of One Thousand Winchester 1873, incorporating that frame into the replica, the replica gun is just that and no more. I suspect a number of “fair to middling” 1873 specimens would have to be rounded up and parted out to avoid the disastrous marketing error of employing new Miroku parts. The horror. 

Motive becomes a factor. If you are cooking this replica up to sell it,  even referring to the job as a “restoration” is skating on the thin edge of ethics. If I have an original Shelby Cobra steering wheel and build an exact, mechanically identical replica around it, is the resulting replica a “restored Shelby Cobra” ? Of course not. Whether it can give you the Near-Death driving experience like a real one is irrelevant. 

If Bloatus wants to blow forty to fifty grand and give a new toy to his grandson, I’m all for it, particularly if our colleague Martin gets a slice of the cake. What Turnbull and Rabeno must do to avoid getting even more famous (but in an unpleasant way) is to make certain they mark up the interior of this baby with enough irreversible disclaimers of originality that Fagin’s Priceless Antique Guns cannot possibly ever do a number on the collector community. I mean make it glow in the dark. And get the unfettered power to do that in writing in the commission contract. 

The power of “originality” of an object derives mostly from human imagination. If we believe a pencil sketch on paper of a dancer was drawn by Pablo Picasso, it gives us a sense of connection with the artist. The paper doesn’t do that,  our imagination does.  This state of affairs makes Picasso collecting extremely vulnerable to forgery. 

The replica builder (and the necessary engraver, who should not rely on the builder to protect his interest) can pretty quickly assess a client’s intention by insisting as a condition of accepting the commission, that he be given a free hand to permanently disqualify the resulting rifle from any possibility of being passed off as an original One of One Thousand rifle, but merely a rifle built on the frame of an original such rifle. 

If there is any hint that ultimate and signiicant financial gain is the driving motivation,  I think prudence dictates declining the commission.  While the builder and engraver are each entitled to compensation when he appears in Court as an expert witness, he is not entitled to be paid for time testifying as a fact witness — which would be the case if Fagin’s Priceless Antique Guns got sued for passing off this creation as an original.  

[This distinction has occasionally been brought home to physicians and surgeons who refuse to furnish medical records of a patient who is sueing the drunk driver who hit him,  unless the doctor is paid an outrageous sum for copying and furnishing the records. Solution: A subpoena duces tecum is then served on the good doctor to personally appear in Court with his precious records and sit on a hard bench in the hall until called to testify that these are, in fact, his records. He is a fact witness and is entitled to bukpis, the Yiddish expression that means literally “little beans” but by extension actually refers to goat feces.  Invariably the doctor, seeing his patient or surgical schedule about to go in the dumper,  agrees to sign the records affidavit he was given to begin with, waives any copying fee, and allows a courier to pick them up.]

I think the analogy with the Cobra steering wheel would perhaps bring a different result if you used the comparison example instead  a serial numbered chassis, verified from the Cobra registry with letter, with a few other bits from a wrecked race car and took it to the top Cobra restorer in the country and had it rebuilt. People would consider it real compared to a replica I think but assign it a different value than an all original, unrestored car. Or…ask ten people, get ten opinions.

Pwog said
I think the analogy with the Cobra steering wheel would perhaps bring a different result if you used the comparison example instead  a serial numbered chassis, verified from the Cobra registry with letter, with a few other bits from a wrecked race car and took it to the top Cobra restorer in the country and had it rebuilt. People would consider it real compared to a replica I think but assign it a different value than an all original, unrestored car. Or…ask ten people, get ten opinions.
  

What unnamed people may or may not consider a “restored original”  was not my concern. 

Martin is an engraver of considerable note and sterling reputation, who asked a not-so-hypothetical question tinged with ethical considerations.

No restoration or replication of  a Winchester 1 of 1000 rifle could be done without engaging a top-notch engraver capable of emulating the necessary engraving pattern and style of an original gun.

Martin is demonstrably capable of doing that accurately;  enough so that he could be at risk of being accused of being at least an accessory to criminal forgery after the restored/replicated piece passed through several hands, over time and its provenance became blurred.

I addressed myself to that possibility and my response was not intended to be philosophical. 

We have seen Winchester restorations that use very little of the original gun and as long as that is disclosed I think there will be buyers in today’s market for the finished product of this hypothetical build. I suspect a few may have even had the serial number changed to enable the builder to “restore” a product with more collector appeal. I have been made aware of a number of serialized Shelby Cobra frames awhile back that reportedly sat in a field for a few decades before someone decided to build a few of them. They were supposedly titled as a vehicle matching the serial number on the frame even though they were built decades later in a shop near here. I have seen the finished products a few times, they bring a price that boggles the mind. At my last job we fabricated drivelines for the resto-mod shop who has built at least a few. In this case the buyer knows exactly what he’s getting, in some cases he can select colors or options. 

If there’s a demand (and deep pockets) someone will supply the product. 

Mike

TXGunNut said
 I have been made aware of a number of serialized Shelby Cobra frames awhile back that reportedly sat in a field for a few decades before someone decided to build a few of them. They were supposedly titled as a vehicle matching the serial number on the frame even though they were built decades later in a shop near here. I have seen the finished products a few times, they bring a price that boggles the mind. 
Mike
  

One of our WACA members restores Shelby Cobras.