QUALITY ENGRAVED ENGLISH GREENER SIDE X SIDE

CLASSIC COLLECTIBLE NZ HERITAGE-- A & W McCARTHY

Used & Well Maintained

12 ga Greener
Double bite with square cross bolt Scalloped Boxlock Action, sides cupped for extra support Expensive Deep Relief Foral Engraving to entire frame as well as the screw Heads 30 ''Clean shinny bores with extractors and No pitting Full & Imp..Modify Nitro proofed & English view marks No Kick butt Pad Walnut Furniture Greener side safety

A. & W. McCarthy Ltd, an old firm of gunsmiths, locksmiths, & fishing equipment specialists. Samuel McCarthy had set up business in Dunedin 1861, originally as a gunsmith, locksmith, and bellhanger. Sam’s sons Arthur and Walter took over in 1890 and the firm then took on its familiar ‘A. & W.’ name.

5 generations of the family ran the business, became the leading importer of English guns & increasingly specialised in fishing equipment. Famous for their catalogue service (which even drew in overseas customers) . For a time they had branches in Invercargil & Palmerston North. They had shops and offices in the Stuart Street building, as well as workshops for their own manufacturing department. Children were paid to collect bags of cocoon bodies, which were used to make fishing lures. McCarthy’s fishing reels are now collectors items.

The shop kept a modest appearance and Cormac McCarthy recalled: ‘There were a lot of customers over on the West Coast who used to buy the mail order catalogues. They were often terribly disappointed when they got to Dunedin for the first time. They expected a place 3 times as big as Arthur Barnett, with rows and rows of guns and fishing rods, and here was this little shop with an old bloke with a beard running around.’

A&W McCarthy was liquidated in 1999, by which time they claimed to be the oldest family-run business in Australasia. The stock and Name were bought by Centrefire, which traded as Centrefire McCarthy’s in Moray Place until April 2017,but still has an online presence.