“...Only thing Purdey has done is made one that costs more than the average US house.... Whooppeee.” [Manly Warrior, post 5]
They cost a bunch because of the large amounts of handwork devoted to fitting & finishing: a feature higher-end British and Continental gunmakers pride themselves on. And it’s charged at proportionately higher labor rates, supposedly justified by the level of skill required, which is part native talent and part the fruit of long apprenticeships.
Whether it’s worth it to the customer, is a different question.
Personal guns with superior fit & finish aren’t some recent trend, nor a dead-end offshoot from American practice. American approaches to gun design & manufacture are much more recent and more imaginative, bringing forth performance at least as good from mass-produced guns requiring far less handwork. As long as a customer is content with average fit & finish.
One can contract for an American Gunmakers Guild rifle that equals or exceeds the fit finish and performance of a Purdey or Holland’s etc. And still spend much less, and have it in hand long before your grandchildren are grown... Beautiful guns indeed, but status symbol more than anything else.