I saw a cased pair of Westley Richards shotguns for sale late one Saturday morning just before the gunshop closed. I did a lot of hard thinking on the weekend and went back to the shop as soon as they opened Monday morning. Just as I was leaving, guns in hand, another guy came in with cash literally dripping from his pockets, saying "You didn't just buy them did you?"

He who hesitates is lost.

Talking to a well-known local gun collector, he told me once about two guys who were at a gun show next to a quality English 10 gauge (3" chambered) double shotgun, trying to beat down the vendor's price, which was a fair one, by quibbling about nonsense. He asked, "how much?", was told the price, reached right over and put his arm out past both of these guys, grabbed the gun and said "sold".

As I said, he who hesitates is lost.

Now, having smuggly said all that, one of the nicest guns I NEVER bought was a .577 NE 2,3/4" double, made by Lancaster, beautiful bore and selling for what seems like a pretty reasonable price now. I wasn't sure then if a 2,3/4" shell was big enough! I'm not quite sure now what I was intending to hunt with it, but it must have been pretty big.