Fox Sterlingworth 20 gauge value

sametwinnie

sametwinnie

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Hi everyone,

I need help to know the approximate value of a Fox Sterlingworth 20 gauge SXS shotgun.

Condition is good to very good (in my opinion), no cracks in the wood, and the metal is nice. It has double triggers and extractor only. Wood have some dents and finish flake.

Barrels are 26’’ and the shotgun work perfectly with a solid lockup.

They seem to command high price in the U.S especially in 20 gauge.

Any idea here in Canada??

Thanks


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What are the chokes and chamber measurements? What are the bores like?

Not an original gun. Stock’s been redone. And is now rough. White line pad. 26” barrels. A Savage/Utica gun, not a Philly gun. These things don’t add value. Some of tha5 stuff can be rectified. But you can’t change 26” and you can’t change Utica. Top dollar Canadian values tend to be along the lines of take the US price in US dollars, and then use that numerical value for the high end range in Canadian dollars.

I’m not in the market for one but I’d say $1400 to $1800 Cdn. There are lots of people like me……I just wouldn’t buy it because it’s not a Philly gun. And there are lots of people who don’t care about $hit like that. I’ve owned small bore Foxes from the Philly era and the Utica era. And I won’t be buying Utica guns in the future.
 
canvasback said:
What are the chokes and chamber measurements? What are the bores like?

Not an original gun. Stock’s been redone. And is now rough. White line pad. 26” barrels. A Savage/Utica gun, not a Philly gun. These things don’t add value. Some of tha5 stuff can be rectified. But you can’t change 26” and you can’t change Utica. Top dollar Canadian values tend to be along the lines of take the US price in US dollars, and then use that numerical value for the high end range in Canadian dollars.



I’m not in the market for one but I’d say $1400 to $1800 Cdn. There are lots of people like me……I just wouldn’t buy it because it’s not a Philly gun. And there are lots of people who don’t care about $hit like that. I’ve owned small bore Foxes from the Philly era and the Utica era. And I won’t be buying Utica guns in the future.
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This is the man that knows! You can take his advice to the bank!
 
Not criticizing just saying for the condition of this gun 1400 -1800 is optimistic.
900-1200$ would be what it would b on my store shelf
This is not the USA and when it comes to sxs’s no truer words every spoken
 
Besides my other questions, what is the LOP measured from the front trigger to the centre of the wood....exclude the pad. Also, if you know how to measure it, Drop at Heel (DAH). None of the pics show the full stock profile straight on so impossible to even guess. Lots of those Foxes had excessive DAH that few modern shooters feel comfortable with.
 
struff55 said:
Not criticizing just saying for the condition of this gun 1400 -1800 is optimistic.
900-1200$ would be what it would b on my store shelf
This is not the USA and when it comes to sxs’s no truer words every spoken
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I am more inclined to go with the lower estimate personally. If I had $1500 or so to put into a 20 sxs, I wouldn't spend it on this gun. My 2 cents
 
Yes, the stocks were poorly refinished. And, I suspect the barrels were reblued. I base this suspicion on the fact that the receiver has gone grey, yet the barrels are not nearly as faded. Even more obvious on a gun of this age, the tang on the trigger guard would have seen constant wear from the shooters' grip. Yet, the bluing there shows no scratches or fading and evidence of a hint of cold blue colours.

I admired Ansley H Fox for building a quality American side-by-side, for his marketing prowess, and his breadth of knowledge (Designer and manufacturer of guns and automobiles!, Wow!). I was thrilled to acquire a graded Fox in decent condition. Owned and shot it with pride. While there are still those who see the value in them, they are a rarefied and dying breed, in Canada at least. When sold, the graded Fox went for around half of what I would have expected.

Yours is not a graded Fox. Serious Fox collectors are not interested in Sterlingworths. As others have pointed out, it has issues - it's not even a particularly good example of what it is. At the right price, it makes for a decent upland gun. I think the market in Canada will bear $600 - $800 max.
 
straightshooter said:
Yes, the stocks were poorly refinished. And, I suspect the barrels were reblued. I base this suspicion on the fact that the receiver has gone grey, yet the barrels are not nearly as faded. Even more obvious on a gun of this age, the tang on the trigger guard would have seen constant wear from the shooters' grip. Yet, the bluing there shows no scratches or fading and evidence of a hint of cold blue colours.

I admired Ansley H Fox for building a quality American side-by-side, for his marketing prowess, and his breadth of knowledge (Designer and manufacturer of guns and automobiles!, Wow!). I was thrilled to acquire a graded Fox in decent condition. Owned and shot it with pride. While there are still those who see the value in them, they are a rarefied and dying breed, in Canada at least. When sold, the graded Fox went for around half of what I would have expected.

Yours is not a graded Fox. Serious Fox collectors are not interested in Sterlingworths. As others have pointed out, it has issues - it's not even a particularly good example of what it is. At the right price, it makes for a decent upland gun. I think the market in Canada will bear $600 - $800 max.
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12 gauge is one thing. Small bores entirely different. I would buy every Fox small bore I ever ran across at $600 a pop, put a little lipstick on the pig and double my money arbitraging them into the US. If you hear of any, let me know.

The market for SW is not serious collectors......it's serious hunters. It's very hard to find a vintage, or any SxS, that handles as well as a Fox small bore and you can't find one that looks better. The last 5 SW small bores I've seen sell in Canada got snapped up by people who were going to drop significant money into restoration and/or upgrading them for use hunting. Including 1 total beater that had about $17,000 lavished in it. IIRC they all sold for between $1400 and $2000. Not asked, sold. And for the money, it is extremely hard to find a better gun. It just takes a guy with money in his pocket, a willingness to wait for the work to be done and vision.

These guns get new, high quality bluing, new stocks with $1500 Turkish blanks, the action gone over and any work needed gets done. Maybe new CCH, maybe not. Engraving maybe or maybe not. The real determinate of value is not the condition of the action, the bluing or the stocks......it's the barrels. Are the bores good and is the BWT still good or is it pitted beyond repair or already honed out to paper thin dimensions.
 
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I have several graded Fox's. There is a difference between a collector and a hunter who collects guns. I am the latter but I do think of myself as a "serious Fox guy". The SW 20 pictured in this thread is sort of like an old Malibu Chevelle. It has the same body and look of a LS6 but it isn't collectible. That said, there are not many Malibu's in good shape left. So when a guy wants to build a resto mod and drop 200-300 grand on a car build he has to find a good donor car. Provided the barrels check out this is a good donor for someone looking for a short barrel small bore Fox. I am not saying this is a good gun for a guy looking for that numbers matching high original condition unit....that's not what this is.

Though it may not be much to look at in the pictures above, any small bore Fox handles like a magic wand. They kill birds and carry well. there are few guns better suited for tight cover woodcock hunting than a 26" 20 bore Fox. In fact, I am not sure a "better" gun for that purpose has ever been made. Just different per your preference.

I hunt ducks every year 10-15 times in any weather with a HE "Super Fox". I also carry my A Grade custom on all my pheasant "farm hunts"....I hunt hard with my guns and I love Fox's. I have several other Fox's as well.

No need to send any more values on the gun. I just bought it from the original poster and he is shipping it to me tomorrow. LOL. I will do a restock and full restoration/resto mod with my friend Chris Dawe and choke it for grouse/woodcock. This will be the 3rd Fox restoration Chris has done for me; he is a master! At the end of the day, maybe I overpaid but I have blown much more money on much stupider things. Life is too short and they don't make em like they used to!!!!.


I took the below from an article on Project Upland.

“The Sterlingworth is mechanically identical to graded Fox guns—using the same cocking and fastening systems and the same three-piece lockwork—but its fore-end latch is different.” In other words, when you buy a Sterlingworth, you are getting the same thing as one of his graded guns. The differences are mainly cosmetic. McIntosh emphatically wrote, “Even at full retail of $25, the Sterlingworth represents the greatest value ever offered on the American gun market before or since.” That’s high praise from one of the greatest gun writers of our time.
 
LOL, just as I guessed would happen. Just a little quicker than I thought.

I guess AR15Meister is one of those guys
with money in his pocket, a willingness to wait for the work to be done and vision.
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British sub-guage guns are not common, but no harder to find than Foxes. They handle just as well, or better. If someone is going to restock to their own style and dimensions, have the action tuned, re-do the CCH and engraving, and reblue, there are plenty of good candidates out there. You're basically talking about buying a frame fitted to a set of barrels and having a new gun made to your specifications.

As I said, I admire A H Fox, and his guns are top notch. But, anyone who invests $17,000 on a Sterlingworth has to have his head examined. I'm not saying it isn't done, but it has to be done out of passion because it's not rational. There's always those who have more money than they know what to do with and they want what they want. They distort the market. They do not define it.

Go ahead and buy this gun for $1500. The OP will love you, and I'll gladly eat crow.
 
straightshooter said:
British sub-guage guns are not common, but no harder to find than Foxes. They handle just as well, or better. If someone is going to restock to their own style and dimensions, have the action tuned, re-do the CCH and engraving, and reblue, there are plenty of good candidates out there. You're basically talking about buying a frame fitted to a set of barrels and having a new gun made to your specifications.

As I said, I admire A H Fox, and his guns are top notch. But, anyone who invests $17,000 on a Sterlingworth has to have his head examined. I'm not saying it isn't done, but it has to be done out of passion because it's not rational. There's always those who have more money than they know what to do with and they want what they want. They distort the market. They do not define it.

Go ahead and buy this gun for $1500. The OP will love you, and I'll gladly eat crow.
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I have a 20 Bore Purdey bar in wood SXS and in my opinion it is no better handling gun than a 20 bore Sterlingworth.

If we were rational we would all date ugly girls, drive compact cars and shoot $300 pump guns.

But what fun is that? lol.
 
straightshooter said:
Why am I not surprised.
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I will tell you that I bought another one, a 28" SW for $1600 recently. This one being a 26" it is worth less but not much less.

If anyone has any 20 bore SW's o(or 16 bore SW's) they want to unload, call me. Or Parkers/Lefevers........Apparently I pay top dollar!
 
straightshooter said:
British sub-guage guns are not common, but no harder to find than Foxes. They handle just as well, or better. If someone is going to restock to their own style and dimensions, have the action tuned, re-do the CCH and engraving, and reblue, there are plenty of good candidates out there. You're basically talking about buying a frame fitted to a set of barrels and having a new gun made to your specifications.

As I said, I admire A H Fox, and his guns are top notch. But, anyone who invests $17,000 on a Sterlingworth has to have his head examined. I'm not saying it isn't done, but it has to be done out of passion because it's not rational. There's always those who have more money than they know what to do with and they want what they want. They distort the market. They do not define it.

Go ahead and buy this gun for $1500. The OP will love you, and I'll gladly eat crow.
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No less rational than the people who pay $25,000 USD for the Purdey I have. Or $25,000 USD for the Lindner Daly 20 ga I have. Should i send you a link to a thread on the gun? I was downplaying the money spent. It's part of a "matched set", one 16 gauge and one 20 gauge. The engraving alone on each gun is in the $12,000 to $15,000 Can and for engraving, that's a deal. Go to the US and check out top engraving costs.

And you are right....there are plenty of good candidates. But across NA the gun of choice for what AR15MEISTER calls, I think correctly, a resto-mod, is a small bore Fox. Not a Parker, Smith Ithaca or Lefever. Not English guns. A Fox. Again and again. Personally I'm knee deep into a resto mod of one (maybe two) pre WW1 Sauers. So I see value in other places. But THE brand name for a resto mod is a Fox small bore. And that trend is not going away.

People who spend more than $4000 cnd for a hunting gun aren't doing it for "rational" reasons. But that doesn't mean their reasons aren't valid or legitimate. We don't all drive a Vega. Some of us drive 'vettes and Jags. Not rational but nothing wrong with it.

Again show me a $6-700 Fox small bore and I'll be trying to buy it.
 
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I asked, privately, and got an answer. Under my low estimate, above Struff's high estimate. I think both the seller and the buyer are happy. The mark of a good deal.

And to reiterate an often heard comment especially around auctions, things are worth what someone will pay that day. Everything else is just yik yak. I was a bit high, you were way low. It's always a guess.
 
AR15meister said:
I have a 20 Bore Purdey bar in wood SXS and in my opinion it is no better handling gun than a 20 bore Sterlingworth.

If we were rational we would all date ugly girls, drive compact cars and shoot $300 pump guns.

But what fun is that? lol.
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Interesting point, but dating ugly girls leads to having ugly children, which isn't a rational objective, IMO. Driving compact cars makes packing hunting dogs, hunting gear, and gun cases a challenging proposition. And $300 pump guns, well, you know.

Rational (using those examples) is driving an off road capable vehicle with adequate horsepower, costing less than $50K in the current environment, as opposed to a vehicle costing in excess of $100K with a 6" clearance. It means dating attractive girls who can contribute to the household, as opposed to super models who are afraid to break a nail. With firearms, it means buying guns that are worth the price paid, or will be worth the total price once upgraded.

I'm not suggesting that building the gun of your dreams isn't a good idea, particularly if/when they don't exist otherwise. But this can only be rationalized from the point of view of getting what you want at any price, not as the market value of the gun. Every year we lose stalwarts of the hunting and shooting community. Sometimes their collections go up for auction. The estate rarely gets the price that the owner would have put on his/her prized possessions. Even those of us who appreciate them as much as the previous owner are only too glad to snap them up at a bargain.
 
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straightshooter said:
Interesting point, but dating ugly girls leads to having ugly children, which isn't a rational objective, IMO. Driving compact cars makes packing hunting dogs, hunting gear, and gun cases a challenging proposition. And 4300 pump guns, well, you know.

Rational (using those examples) is driving an off road capable vehicle with adequate horsepower, costing less than $50K in the current environment, as opposed to a vehicle costing in excess of $100K with a 6" clearance. It means dating attractive girls who can contribute to the household, as opposed to super models who are afraid to break a nail. With firearms, it means buying guns that are worth the price paid, or will be worth the total price once upgraded.

I'm not suggesting that building the gun of your dreams isn't a good idea, particularly if/when they don't exist otherwise. But this can only be rationalized from the point of view of getting what you want at any price, not as the market value of the gun. Every year we lose stalwarts of the hunting and shooting community. Sometimes their collections go up for auction. The estate rarely gets the price that the owner would have put on his/her prized possessions. Even those of us who appreciate them as much as the previous owner are only too glad to snap them up at a bargain.
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LOL, I'm staying out of the ugly girl part of the discussion but I think the gun value part is quite interesting.

I'm certainly not trying to be "right". Any knowledge I have about the market comes from reading and asking questions and then considering what I've learned. And the worst thing one can do is rely on one's own, possibly outdated, assumptions. I think SW upgrades live in that middle ground between reasonably priced and perfectly good guns and the stratospheric costs of things like English Best. And it's a chance for a knowledgeable hunter to build the gun experience has taught him that he wants, not something off the shelf.

And, if the rest of the market is anything like me, it's because I love the process. But I love restoring a house......restoring my keel boat sailboat. It's the process as much as anything else. Hunting isn't rational. But it's damn fun. I've added, what is for me, a whole other layer of fun to the game by looking at guns as more than simply rational tools. I don't think I'm the only one and sometimes, fun costs money. YMMV.

Edit to add....a $300 M12 in 16 is a gun worth hunting with all day.
 
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