Holland & Holland Works of Art

Can't see the vid at the moment so hope it's not this....How it's Made did a show on Holland & Holland that showed the whole process of hand building a shotgun. Amazing stuff and beautiful guns, maybe when I've figured out how to be a billionaire I'll have them build me one
 
I knew a guy that had one. "Cap" Barnwell was his name. Dude was loaded. My Uncle knew him from the Shreveport Gun Club. They shot Skeet and Trap together. Cap had one of the largest Fredrick Remington art collections in the South and donated tons of money to the city of Shreveport for museums and the like. Occasionally he'd join us on our yearly dove and quail hunts. He was a pretty decent, down to earth guy. I think the hunts were his escape from reality where he could be just "one of the guys" because he always had a ball out there in the corn fields. As I recall he was a pretty decent bird hunter.
 
Thanks. Great video. I had the pleasure of handling several H&H Royal Ejector side by sides at the Holland & Holland stand at the Vintagers World Side by Side shoots at Addieville in RI and at Orvis Sandanona in NY over the years. At one shoot, I was admiring a magnificent match pair of H&H side by side guns and the Brit sales guy asked if I had any questions. "Yes, I have two questions" I said. "First, is the price on the tag, $295,000.00, in US Dollars or British Pounds? "It's in US Dollars, Sir and your second question??" I said "For that price, do they come with 3 bedrooms?" He wandered off mumbling something about the "American sense of humor". Still, if I had the money, I would have bought them anyway. They were just works of art....
 
Now imagine H&H making the same gun between 1875-1900 without any CNC or other machine tools, just experienced, talented employees working with files and other hand tools.

The last book I read, stated it took some 1200 man hours to produce a high end British side by side shotgun and about 1500 man hours for an equivalent over and under. That doesn't include the engraving, the stock blank and the raw materials. So 1200 hours at an average of $50/hour is $60,000 dollars in just the labor and that is probably on the low side.
 
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