Monday, January 11, 2010

Bo-Whoop

Phil Bourjaily, over at The Gun Nut, writes about a shotgun once owned by Nash Buckingham. It's a 1927 HE grade Super Fox that Buckingham used as a duck gun. He lost it after a game warden made a license check.
Bo Whoop is an HE grade Super Fox made in 1927 as a long-range duck gun for Buckingham, who, along with being a much-beloved outdoor writer, was a famous waterfowl shot. It weighs 9 ½ pounds and has 32-inch Full and Full barrels bored especially to shoot 3-inch loads of 4 shot. Buckingham shot it for over 20 years. Then, December 1, 1948, he and friend had their licenses checked by a warden after a duck hunt. Buckingham leaned Bo-Whoop against the fender of his car, forgot about it, and drove away.* The gun was never seen again. Buckingham had another Fox made – Bo-Whoop II – but the whereabouts of the original have been unknown. Until now.
It's a beautiful shotgun.



And, the sale is legal.
By and large, American double lovers believe this is the real thing and not some elaborate forgery. And, apparently, despite the mysterious circumstances of the gun’s disappearance, this sale is legal. It will be interesting to see how much it brings. All I know for sure is, I won’t be the one with the winning bid.
I don't know how mysterious the disapperance was, he drove off and left it on the road.

I did the same thing once. A bunch of us were finishing up a rabbit hunt and I leaned my Stevens 311 against the pickup truck while I loaded the dogs, then poured myself a cup of coffee and later drove away with my shotgun leaning against the rear fender. I didn't get far before I realized what I'd done and turned around to find the shotgun laying in the middle of a dirt road. The muzzle had been dinged up pretty badly, so I had the first inch of the barrel cut off and had a big white bead installed. The barrels were originally full and modified and after they were cut down, they became improved cylinder and almost cylinder bore. I went on to use that shotgun for several years and with the opened chokes, it was a heck of an upland shotgun.

I sold it in a pique of poverty several years later and that's one gun I've always regretted selling.

Still, that Fox is a beautiful shotgun.

Hat tip to Field and Stream.

3 comments:

J said...

How can the sale be legal?

Windy Wilson said...

I don't know.
English Common Law made an interesting distinction between found items that were deliberately placed by the previous owner and found items that were dropped or otherwise unintentionally lost by the previous owner.
Placed items, including buried "hoards" of coins and precious metals were considered the property of the finder (or the owner of the place they were found, while dropped items, like something that falls off your vehicle or blows out of your yard are considered the property of the original owner.
In order for this to be a legitimate sale, the shotgun would have to be found property that the previous owner placed somewhere and did not come back for it. At least under English Common Law.
State Law may be different.

Old NFO said...

That was my question too...