It's interesting, but I reckon years ago, before Americans started to really like English DR's, those with nice shiny stocks, great figure, superb bluing, nice shiny actions were of more interest to them than anything else.

I know certain people in the UK that used to "tart up" guns (mostly shotguns) for the American market before sending them out.

That was until people learnt that the "understated elegance", flat, matte stocks, dull bluing etc was how they were made and original.

And now one of the first questions people seem to ask is "is it all original, if not, what has been done and has it been done correctly".

Now some of you may disagree with this, I welcome others opinions on the above or an expansion of this theme.