I also wondered when he made the comment, he tends to sell military and muzzle loaders, I believe he was trying to work out why the leaf was missing.

I would imagine he bought it in as it is, thought it was always like that and did not know for sure. It is an anomaly but there was nothing else that concerned me at all although I do not know of any provenance

The calibre is .255 Jeffery which may be relevant - I made the comment about a Gibbs .461 as the ideal rifle I would pay that sort of money for!

TH44