Thomas Wild

[John 39]

I have a T Wilde s/s shotgun. I believe was purchased in 1921 with the serial 11816. I am trying to establish if the date of purchase is correct and any information on this gun to see what it is worth.
Cheers Dave

[John 39]

Thanks for joining and paying the membership fee, we need to boost our pensions for carrying out detailed research such as this.

You are very lucky because we have full records of Watson and Wild (no E on Wild by the way). Your gun is a fairly standard boxlock. The serial numbers for 1921 only went up to 10315.

This gun was made before 1926 but sold for £28 on 15 March 1926 to a man named Hickman, initials illegible but probably S J or F J. It had an Anson & Deeley action with a crossbolt.

Originally, the barrels were 30 inches long with 2 3/4 inch chambers, hopefully they are the same now. Details of the boring were not recorded, probably 1/2 and full choke. The barrel number should be 7558 and were probably made by another of the Perrins family, there were hundreds of them! I would think the woodwork is fairly standard.

William Edward Perrins was born in 1890 and left action making to join the Worcestershire Regiment as a Private, he was probably an armourer. He was missing in action and presumed dead on 6 July 1916 aged only 26. Presumably his stock was taken over by a relative and sold to Thomas Wild, most of the guns sold around March 1926 had Perrins actions.

Value depends on condition so any unseen valuation is suspect. In the UK the gun might be worth £1000 or a little more.

[Laurence Frank 47]

I thought that the T. Wild records were lost in the war so am intrigued to find that they still exist. I have a Wild 12 bore hammer gun, serial number 6705, and would be very interested in any information.

[John 39]

Can't be of much help. The first record book starts with 7420 in 1894 which indicates your gun dates to 1892/3.

[Laurence Frank 47]

Thank you.

[Anders Dahl Johansen 840]

This was interesting. I have a Thomas Wild, s/s 12 with no 11247. Could it be found anything by this shotgun? I would be very pleased for a feedback

[John 39]

Hi Anders,

Sorry to be so long in replying. Your gun seems to have been originally sold to Perrins, a gun retailer in Johannesburg, no doubt related to one of the many Perrins gun makers in Birmingham. It seems he sold the gun to a Mr J Buchal on 16 May 1924. It must have come back to England because the records show it was sold in 1937 to somebody whose name I cannot decipher then in 1938 sold to someone else with an indecipherable name. This third owner's son sold it back to Wild and in the same year they sold it to a Mr W Taylor. Quite a history but I'm not sure what it tells us!

[Anders Dahl Johansen 840]

Thank you very much for this interesting information. To day the gun is in Norway. I will try to find the way to Norway, but I belive this is from the latest years. I will follow the information you give on the forum
Best regards
Anders