What is the history of the - New Haven By Mossberg guns. It has the adjustable chock, which I will be leaving on the cutting room floor.
I've had a New Haven 600 CT for 31 years. My dad bought it for me when I was 14. He bought it from a store called "Gemco" -a chain of discount department stores in California similar to Walmart Super Centers of today, in that they also had a full-on grocery store attached to them.
I 've often heard the New Haven line referred to as the lower-end Mossberg or "Maverick" of its day. I'm not sure that this is entirely true because my gun, while having the single action bar common to other "New Haven by Mossberg" guns of the day, also came with nicely figured mahogany wood and a higher polished and more deeply blued barrel than other New Havens I've seen, or other Mossberg M-500's, for that matter. It also had a smooth and slick action, right out of the box. I tend to think that they were a "House Brand" varient, to be sure, but I suspect that the "House" selling them could have Mossberg build them to spec to a certain degree, if they ordered enough of them.
As for being "lower end," my dad paid 139.99 for my gun in 1979. That is roughly equivalent to about $425.00 in today's 2010 dollars. Not exactly cheap when you consider that you can buy a new Mossberg M-500 twenty gauge from my local Walmart for $225.00 + Tax and it isn't much of a problem to buy a new Maverick 88 for under two hundred. The new ones look kind of the same, and I'm sure that a lot of parts interchange, and so on, but the difference is in details and execution. The Walmart M-500 has some kind of really plain, not too attractive wood for the stock -brich, probably. The metal polish isn't like my gun has. The interor of the receiver isn't as cleanly finished. The slide has a rough, gritty, clunky, crummy feel when cycled.
-JP
