Good fortune. The fowler was hanging on a dealer's rack with a $350 tag on it. I asked him, just before the end of the year (two years back) what he'd take. He said, "$250 and get it out of here." Evidently, he has a customer who has more money than sense. The guy buys these things and then brings them in to sell later for a song. The Dangerous Game gun was listed at $450 in the same shop. I was trading for a BT99 for trap (a dumb move as I again went back to my 870tc). I asked how much additional to throw in the big game gun. He added $300 to the tag and off I went.
In years past I've picked up four others the same way. A pair of TC Cherokees (or maybe Senecas, I'd have to go down and look). Traded a Ruger P85 for the pair (had 250 in the Ruger). Got a Navy Arms Magnum Double 12, like one I bought in 78, for $250..like new. Also picked up a TC Hawken (I hate that name on this gun) for $250, from the 70's, unfired, from a guy who won it at Second Chance.
The bargains are out there, especially now that the big black powder boom is waning.
I shot at Friendship from '67 through 80 and a couple times after, at Illinois state, Wisconsin bp shotgun championships, and on and on. Used over a keg a year and a hundred pounds of lead/year. Now, I get out once a year for deer.
Sometime down the road, I'm going to thin out the ranks of BP guns. Those on the chopping block will include one of the TCs, probably the .36, the Hawken, a Mowrey 12 ga, an original Leman squirrel gun, and a 50 cal Renegade.
BTW, got a 58 TC Big "Boar" from the same dealer about three years ago, custom shop special, same original buyer, for $250. Timing is everything.