Beretta Silver Pigeon - 12 g. Thoughts Opinions

ronecol

ronecol

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Location
Orillia, Ontario
I recently acquired this (Pietro) Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 gauge pump from the original owner who purchased it in the early 60s.

Made in Italy - 28 inch barrel - full choke - 2 3/4 in. chambered. Date code indicates it was manufactured in 1960

Last photo shows breach engraving. Photos only show the right side but the left side is equally nice.

The stock has a couple of tiny almost indiscernible marks (have to look hard to find them) otherwise practically no sign of wear anywhere - I'd give it overall 95%

I'm not familiar with this shotgun so I'd appreciate any thoughts, comments, opinions etc including desirability & what its value might be if I decided to sell it?

Any responses will be appreciated.
 
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Had one, a very nice well made gun. Functioned perfectly, pointed and swung very well. Beautifully made barrel. They were only made for about 12 years and sales were disappointing, partly because the price was nearly twice that of their main competitors the Winchester M12 and the Remington 870. Total civilian sales were around 20,000 units and there were about another 12000 made for military sales.The current demand for fixed choke 2 3/4" chambered guns is very low, it would be a tough sell over $250-300 even in perfect as new condition.
 
That gun looks to be in very nice condition, unfortunately most people have no idea that Beretta ever built a pump gun and therefore the values of them are really low even when they are in as nice condition as this one. The production years started around 1958 and I can't find when they ended production however they didn't make many in the that time. Ashcroft is probably right with 12 years and 20,000 guns. It was made for the US market becuase that's virtually the only country where there was a demand for pump guns and some of the parts were interchangable with the silver Lark (Gold Lark and Ruby Lark) semi auto's of the time. The Silver Larks had issues and were not on the market long before being replaced by the 300 series.
Nice wood on the rear stock, too bad the factory didn't match the fore stock up to it.
 
That gun is absolutely beautiful!

I was liquidating an estate of a family friend and he had a bunch of really classic 12 Gauge full choke pump guns. They sold for cheap, because as mentioned a fixed full pump gun has limited utility nowadays.
 
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