Although I don't doubt Hunter Arms could have/would have plated a shotgun on special request (after-all, the Hunter Arms Company produced Hunter Fans certainly feature plated parts), to date I've not heard that such plating can actually be confirmed by/with any evidence contained within the original shipping records? At any rate, the above gun does appear to have a raised rib (a serial number would be nice to date the gun); which feature first appeared on Smith guns in 1938, and LONG after the Hunter brothers were no longer associated with the Smith gun or Hunter Arms Company (gone by 1917 as I recall?). So is that gun in fact a pre-13 gun? If not that fact by itself means one of two things, the barrels, if raised rib type, are a later replacement, or the facts given in that story aren't adding up (a serial number could set the record straight). Based on the information noted in the above posting I'm almost sure the owner of this gun is the same individual who called me years ago after my making knowledge of the never cataloged Smith Grade A-4 known to the public, as he claimed that his Great Grandfather had been presented a Grade A-4 Smith(one of 6 or 7 total examples?) by John Hunter. The story surrounding that gun and its loss was quite interesting, and I won't repeat that story here; just suffice it to say that no LC Smith gun has been found to date grade marked "A-4", nor do the surviving shipping records record any serial numbered Smith gun as having shipped as an A-4 Grade.