OK, apologies for boring everyone to death after such a diverse selection of scatterguns and truly amazing provenance so far:

...but here are a couple of pics of my bog-standard Rigby sidelock.

It has all the quintessential Rigby features, including the Rigby-Bissel rising third bite (Patent No. 1141 of 1879), and Rigby's favored lever forend latch. A true “best quality” gun (No.2 of a pair) with absolutely gorgeous wood, and the leather-covered pad is nice too.

This particular gun was originally made in 1887 and the patent use number for the rising bite is 369. The rib address is "John Rigby & Co, St James's Street, London, & Dublin".

The gun was nitro-reproved early last century, and sleeved with brand new barrels early this century! The sleeved barrels, non-ejector, and absence of a case, meant that thankfully bidding was not fierce and it was affordable to my meagre purse.

We Aussies are intrigued by the fact that sleeving reduces the value enormously at auction in the UK, whereas in reality the bidder can often win a gun for less than the probable cost of the sleeving job, and is then presented with minty bores, 'new' barrel wall thickness, and a veritable lifetime of shooting all over again! And all this on a marvelous old gun from the heyday of British gunmaking! All is well with the world.

Although I have owned it for a couple of years now, this Rigby will be making its debut on Magpie Geese at my local swamp with bismuth twos in a few days.