Very nice rifle. Vrancken engraved is a plus. A very identifiable name amoung the FN engravers plus one of the best. Felix Funken was considered the 'Master' at the FN factory.
Vrancken did a lot of the high grade superposed shotguns.
A grade III. No gold inlay on a III.
The standard dog w/ (usually) 3 ducks on the right,,,dog with (usually) 3 pheasants on the left. Should be a dogs head on the top. Some times w/a rabbit in it's mouth (early), sometimes w/a duck in it's mouth (later). The dogs head usually faces left,,,,once in a while the engraver got out of the box and they face right.
All sorts of small variations of all of the above depending on the individual engraver. But the basic layout especially the scroll was followed gun to gun.
Some were not signed at all.
II and III grades were Grey Finish. Grade I was blued.
All these points are subject to the occasional gun that shows up factory original but does not follow the 'plan'.
I have some serial # info for the 22 semi auto's for the years '56 thru '73. (FN production) Japan production started in '74.
The year date code started in '68/69 becasue of the GCA is easy enough to come up with a yr built.
The years before that,, it's a guesstimate. The info I have is from just that but based on purchase dates, invoices, postmarks, ect and is copied from Tyler's book on the 22 Browning rifle.
Plus keep in mind that FN rolled over the serial numbers every 99,999on the rifle. To show the difference, a 'hundred thousand marker' is placed in front of the 'T' in the serial number. A 1, 2, 3, ect can be found in front of the 'T' in the serial number as well as the yr date code after '68.
I'd only be guess now as I haven't been around these in many years. But with the condition, Grade, case, instruction booklet, ect,,It would seem to be a 3K to 4K Browning. But as I said it's just my WAG at this point.
Check thru the closed auctions and see if anything like this has actually sold and for how much.
