Posted by Chris Frantz on January 12, 2014, 9:28 pm
I had the chance to look at a pretty high condition Pigeon gun today that looked entirely correct. Regular frame,12ga, steel barrels, straight grip, ejectors, HOT, ivory sights, normal engraving with birds on both sides, "P" stamp on barrels, etc. Everything looked right including the price. I hesitated on purchasing so that I could do some research at home first and that's where a flag was raised.
In reviewing the serial number info from Dr. Jim's book, Houchins, and Brophy, it appears that this gun should NOT have ejectors. The number is 119XXX which is an extractor gun number (no ejector gun should have ever had the number during the time the Pigeon was available, if I'm reading the tables correctly). It is the second type of ejector, The numbers match on all parts and have an "E" suffix". Nothing about the gun suggests that it was returned to the factory and ejectors were added later, but I guess that's possible???
As I mentioned, it has the HOT, so that dates it to at least 1904ish. I'd like to bring this one home, but this inconsistency "gives me pause". Any thoughts on what may have happened with this gun (or am I totally misreading the serial number data)? I'm not as familiar with the pre-1913 guns and this may not be unusual.