RickC said
Thank you Chris for piping in here. Although not my rifle, appreciate you taking the time to study this piece. RIA might be correct after all ??‍♂️

As I read your comments I started to think, is there anybody that would actually be able to confirm or deny its authenticity.
Who’s that one person or persons living that you know & has the most knowledge about authenticating case color.  

Anyone living that can authenticate it, wouldn’t do so based merely off photographs. 

I also don’t understand how one could “Help” case coloring. My experience and understanding is that you either have original coloring, or an entire refinish. Nothing in between the two.

You might can help fade the coloring, but I don’t know how one would go about “helping” it or making it look better.  Other than some kind of varnish, but all that would do is maintain what you have.

Photography and the lighting used when taking photos can drastically make things look different. The Real Estate industry knows this trick all to well. With enough photoshop filters, they can make a crack house in the ghetto, look like a McMansion.  

If a collector is truly worried about a particular gun having been “Turnbulled”. The best thing for them to do may would be to simply call Turnbull Restoration and ask if they’ve restored said particular gun. Not saying you’ll get the answer you want, but at least in the past they’ve been honest about such things. As in example one year a NRA silver medal was taken away from a gun that was passed as original condition, but later found out to been restored by Turnbull.

My two cents.

Sincerely,

Maverick

  I agree with Maverick, you have to see the gun not the pictures.

 There are a lot of people that can tell if they held it in their hands, most of them work for auction companies, are gun dealers, or high end collectors. RIA has one of the best. They describe it as original and the price indicates it’s real. The gun is large and any flaw in any area would call into question if the rest of the gun is original.

 Guns this nice are scary to the untrained eye. T/R

Here’s a Turnbull 86.

mrcvs said

Explain how the case colouring is so pristine that there isn’t even any wear where one would hold a balanced gun at the receiver, no dulling due to sunlight, no wear whatsoever to the receiver, and yet someone needed to fiddle with the rear sight elevator such that the bluing is worn to the point that bare steel is evident???  

Does anyone care to address this?

As most of You are aware, My personal , Paterson” experience buying from pictures , with the help of a expert, has not been great. There are so many well done phony,”high end” guns out there I think it is very difficult to establish authenticity from some pictures. A lesson well learned albeit a little late.

RickC said
Here’s the Turnbull gun from the previous reply in both photos. I enhanced it on my iPhone. The more I look at the RIA rifle in the original post, the more I believe it’s legit. ??‍♂️

  

I remain skeptical.  Any thoughts as to why then the sight elevator was adjusted enough to cause this amount of wear and yet the rifle was supposedly used so little that the case colouring is 100%???

If you ask a good restoration person like Turnbull they can age back the colors to look like they would if they were actually over a hundred years old.

I have a shotgun that has about 90+% of the case colors because someone used, I assume varnish, on the receiver.  Any areas where the varnish wore away the colors have faded due to exposure to light.

If a gun has been put away most of it’s life there is a good chance of having great colors.

Don’t buy guns that you have not actually picked up.

mrcvs said

Well, RIA doesn’t set the price, the bidder and the runner up bidder determines the hammer price, unless shill bidding is involved, which seems unlikely.  What continually amazes me as that bidders are RIA just put all common sense aside and bid up to astronomical ranges, whereas competing auction houses get more sensible bidders who bid more sensibly.  Now, of course, there are items that are exceedingly rare or of exceedingly high condition offered for sale at RIA not avail for auction elsewhere which means, of course, one has to either play with the big boys or simply do without.  

Sometimes, I think the explanation is as simple as the fact that selected people have a lot of money.  Some people (not me) have done EXCEEDINGLY well in the stock market over the last several years.  Is crazy spending out of line if you’ve made crazy money?  Auctions are an interesting scenario – you have some people there who have scrimped and saved for years to purchase the gun of their collecting career – while you have others for whom spending the money is inconsequential.  You’re going to have some hard feelings and resentment.

1892takedown said

Burt Humphrey said
I personally like “wear” and I have never owned a case hardened gun as pristine as the one Maverick posted. Those that suggest a need to personally look at a gun are spot-on. I don’t know if the 86 is right – a lot of you guys are smarter than me. Photos can be deceiving 

I totally agree.  The RIA 86 isnt a gun that I would be remotely interested in because for the simple fact that is doesnt show its had much of a life of use.  Its problematic because it has too much condition.  I also agree that I dont like the color of the blue on the barrel or the caliber marking, which may be a product of photography.  The wear on the barrel flat from the elevator, well it happens if you use them, as well as the dings and minor scratches in the wood, barrel, and also on the receiver.  Also the mag retaining band, how many of those do you see with full blue, they seem to be one part that looses blue the quickest in the unprotected areas.  Then the lack of or sparseness of bright colors on the top and bottom of the receiver (wear or just how it is).  Then also, looking at the CCH on the lever (and what looks like old lacquer applied to the lever), the hammer, and the forend cap CCH.   I dont think the case colors on the RIA rifle are “vivid” or in the same class as the 86 shown in Maverick’s pic that are said to be factory.  I agree that you have to take all these various aspects into consideration and if spending that kind of money, and an on-hands inspection. 

More to the point, in my prior post I was trying to engage a discussion regarding the qualities of the CCH considering the receiver, hammer, forend cap, etc based on the qualities visible in the RIA photos of the CCH, polishing, scratches, pin pricks, and forge marks in relation to the CCH coverage, colors, and color pattern that go beyond “well it just doesnt look right” explanation, but rather the why, and what qualities look right and what looks wrong.  So if one of these days when that oil well (s) come in, Ill know what to look for .   

When that oil well comes in just stick with the checkered, case hardened 76’s like you have on your signature page – what a rare and special gun they are – collectors have just figured that out over the last few years and there are not enough to go around. I am fortunate enough to have one in 50 express – may have showed you photos before but will again one of these days. Every time I see a post from you I am in awe of that gun – kind of like Bert’s signature page – I always drool  over the checkered high wall on the bottom of his signature page. I have been thinking about your post and I know we agree guns can be too good and in this era of fakery we all need to be cognizant of that fact. I am a condition guy but guns need to right before they can occupy a spot in my safe.