Thanks to all of you for an excellent thread. This is one of those firearms that could very well fall into the area I like to refer to as the "sock drawer" classic. I imagine it sitting in some old sock drawer, where it has sat for decades, probably loaded...just in case. A friend of mine carried his FFL license back when for $150 just about anybody could. He was on a supposed rotating list with the local Goodwill organization. According to him if Goodwill was called out to a house for a general pick-up, they often were assigned removing everything from the house, or room in some cases. One rule was they could not handle any firearms or ammunition. If they came across any firearms, ammunition they would call who was next on the list and that person had X-amount of time to get there or the next was called, etc. Most of the stuff he got called on were "stinkers", old shotguns, wall hangers, etc. But ever now and then he got a pearl some of which were in his two complete Model 70 Winchester collections, pre-war and pre-64.
We talked about my "sock drawer" theory and according to him that was where many handguns were found, usually top drawer. Back in the day people did not necessarily lock their houses but they did lock their chest of drawers, most family items of value were kept in those chests.
Another friend of mine has a wife that runs a well-established antique business. She often buys the entire estate, then along with my buddy has to remove the contents that did not sell during the estate sale. He talked about a chest of drawers he and his wife moved from an upper bedroom down the stairs and into their van. He told he heard something moving in one of the drawers, sliding and rattling around. Got down to the van, decided to take a look and found a $10 gold piece. Neat stuff is still out there waiting to be found.