My oldest isn't in this country, but back in South Africa - I gave it to a friend when I emigrated to the USA. It's an 1827 SxS with flint-lock external hammers, in what approximates 16ga. by today's measurements, with Damascus barrels. It was brought to the then-Cape Colony by a British colonial official in 1833, and sold by him (on his departure for England in 1837) to a family named Du Preez in the Franschoek Valley. From there, it travelled all over Southern Africa during the great Eastward expansion (the Great Trek, the various wars with local tribes, and both Anglo-Boer Wars) before being captured as a "prize of war" by an English lieutenant in 1901. He brought it back to the Cape, where he married a local girl and settled down. It stayed in their family until 1987, when I bought it. The history of the gun was recorded in various documents, including a diary entry by the Boer from whom the gun was captured in 1901, which is why I know the story so well.
I used to shoot the gun occasionally, and it handled and fired very well (although the typical flint-lock, black-powder "fizz" before the main charge fired could alert small game at close range, and give them an opportunity to move before the pattern reached them). I wanted to bring it with me to the USA, but I was informed - rather rudely - that none of my guns could be brought over, as the ATF had some pretty stringent regulations about this. Unfortunately, no-one told me that antique firearms like this shotgun were
exempt from the regulations, and I could have brought it anyway!
Still, it's giving my friend good service, and I may yet persuade him to let me have it back, and bring it over here.