In this month's On Target I am going to talk about one shotgun and why extreme rarity tends to drive the price up. The gun is an L.C. Smith 410 Specialty Grade with ejectors and a Hunter one trigger made in late 1927.


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This gun has a pistol grip stock and a splinter forend. It comes with 28" barrels with a high, solid, raised rib. The barrels are choked full and full. This gun is as new in its' original box, with original hang tag. The box also has its' over cover with the original railway express C.O.D. shipping tag. It is packed with newspaper dated April 20, 1939. How coincidental, my birthday is the exact same day.


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Now that you have an overview of the gun, I will try to explain what makes it so unique. This specialty grade of L.C. Smith shotgun was the third grade up (Field and Ideal were the first two) and was made from 1913 to 1945 by the Hunter Arms Co., Inc. This grade was also made by the Marlin Firearms Co. It just so happens that the Marlin Firearms Co. purchased the Hunter Arms Co. after the war. The total production number of this grade was about 6,500 by Hunter Arms Co. This number seems large, so why would I think this gun is rare?


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The total number of shotguns manufactured in this grade including (10, 12, 16 and 20 gauge and .410) was about 6,500. Now we throw in the rarity factor... They only produced about 33 of the .410 shotguns! This is one half of one percent of the total 6,500 shotguns. To a collector, this is a very small production run. Reason being that most people thought the .410 shotguns were somewhat useless. Add to that the options of the single trigger (increase of about 10%) and ejectors (increase of about 25%) and you're looking at even more value. The fact that this gun is as new and comes in the original box with over cover adds about 25% to the value as well.

What else increases rarity and drives prices up? And, how do we determine what a gun like this is worth? Of course, market demand drives the price. If you're looking for good investment guns like these, they are hard to find and command premium prices, as high as $40,000

As always, remember, any time you are buying and selling these types of firearms, make sure you use a professional collector or an auctioneer with a reputation for honesty and knowledge. For future articles, if you have specific firearm questions or would like specific topics covered, please email your comments to: crush@rush2arms.com.

Good luck buying,
Charley