Beautiful! An excellent find! Definitely one to treasure.

Now you just need to sand down some of those rough spots on the stock, followed by a coat or two of tru-oil to bring out the grain, slap a Weaver mount on it, and you've got yourself a bang-up hunting rifle!

Seriously, though, as collectors we are really just temporary custodians of these pieces. I have a large Ross collection, and worry about what will happen to the pieces when I'm gone. My kids are somewhat interested, but time will tell whether that continues or not. I guess just keep good records of the values and what they are, so that they don't get sold off for next to nothing to some unscrupulous person after I kick the bucket.

I suppose the one good thing about these older rifles is that the ammunition is not as readily available, so they are much less likely to be cut down as sporters or otherwise butchered than they would have been 30 years ago.

Ed