The inscription on the receiver detracts from this rifle.

I also would like to see a factory letter.

Rhe upper tang is proud to the stock and the fit is not particularly good, which is problematic.

Even if the “engraving” on the receiver had actually been done by a real engraver, it wouldn’t detract as much in my mind. Maverick said

  

Of course not, a professionally engraved inscription would be an asset.  And in 1940, any village large enough to have two gas stations probably had a watch & jewelry shop, where simple engraving was done at very reasonable prices.  My “village” had one, & even in the early ’60s the cost was still low.  For the princely sum of maybe $2, idiot Bill could have spared his friend (& us) this eyesore.

TR said
 Questions; Why did he give him a 40 year old gun? Why is there two different penmanship’s? Why didn’t he hire a jeweler or engraver?

No reason to question the “reality” of it, that the time & individuals are what they purport to be.  Don’t you see & hear people as stupid as Bill every time you turn on the TV? 

steve004 said
Too bad Pawn Stars isn’t still around – they could have sorted it out.  They’d have called an, “expert” in.  

  

What do you mean “isn’t still around”?  They’re flying higher than ever, now going around the country holding show & tell events in blatant imitation of “Antiques Roadshow.”

But no expert is needed to recognize garden-variety stupidity. 

I guess I’m different. With millions of Winchesters floating around this one provides thought provoking history. I would prefer a beat-up old 73 with William Bonney scratched on the receiver as to a shiny kept in the safe 73 that has absolutely no history. Besides these guns in 1940 were used as tools not as objects to adore. If my father had given me an old gun with with Grandpas name scratched on it it would be mine until I died. I have the feeling that many collectors have beautiful wives that are kept for looking at once in a while. That’s not for me. I would hang that on the wall with the inscription showing. Don

cj57 said I’m a big B western fan and if that same gun had Tim McCoy engraved on it, I would be bidding!!!! 
  

You’re saying that looks like a gun Tim McCoy would have owned?  Or Tom, Gene, or Roy?

cj57 said I’ve seen guns that some of the old actors owned and they were not the mint gems!

Both Gene & Roy had major gun collections; nothing like the gun in question included.  Don’t know about Tim, but he was equipped with the fanciest gunbelt & tack the studio could provide, so I’d guess he wouldn’t find such a crude piece of work very appealing.

But you changed the subject: neither I nor anyone else derided guns that weren’t “mint gems.”  In fact several of us said we particularly admired guns showing evidence of honest wear.  But honest wear doesn’t include defacing or any other kind of deliberate abuse, I hope you would agree.

I think there’s also a significant distinction to be made between a piece of your property that you might deface in this way for your own purposes, & a GIFT made to another person.

cj57 said
I just seen one of John Harts (lone Ranger) at auction and it was a maybe good cond SAA, that you would thumb your nose at, but someone liked Mr Hart. The Dukes 92s were less then mint! I have an M1 carbine IBM that I got off of a WW2 vet back in the the 80s with the wrong stock, but this vet carried it across Europe and took it home with him and entrusted it to me, and it means a lot to me! I have guns worth a lot more, but it’s not always condition and value that matters.

  

I thumb my nose at willful abuse, negligence, or other evidence of gross stupidity, not honest use & wear, as I’ve made plain not once but several times, in this thread & many others.  But I perceive that the distinction between normal wear & tear, vs. deliberate abuse, is one that you’re unable to understand, or so it seems.

steve004 said
 This rifle is one where there is both a gun and a story for sale.

  

What’s the story?  Beyond one of the pair named being a careless gun-vandal.  Anybody who thinks that’s interesting can find plenty of other Bubba-botched guns to add to their collection.