(mike campbell @ Feb. 24 2012,7:15)

QUOTE

This is strictly one man's opinion, but from a man who has had a lifelong obsession with pretty wood.

Feathercrotch is practically the definition of beautiful American Black walnut. Tell somebody you have a piece of "exhibition" quality and they'll most likely visualize feathercrotch. Of course, there are fans of fiddleback and stump figure, too, but feathercrotch corners the market on figured Am Black. IMO, as beautiful as it is, if you've seen one feathercrotch, you've seen 'em all. A Miss USA pageant made up of 50 brunettes would bore me. Each may be stunningly beautiful, but I'd opt for a few redheads, blonds and bald ones in the mix.

So, while I've stocked a half-dozen different guns for myself in feathercrotch Am Black, I don't think I've ever owned 2 at the same time. Winchesters of course just beg for it, but so do the other Am classics. There was enough European walnut used on high grades in the day that it doesn't look out of place to me, even on the field grades.

Working characteristics aside, there's tremendously more variety in the figure of Juglans regia than in Juglans nigra. That's why it has so many different names. Turkish, Circassian, French, etc. is so named because of the different color and figure characteristics evene thouigh it's  all English walnut. So I can have a dozen guns stocked in "extra fancy" English with as many different defining features. Even quartersawn English can be exhibition quality; somewhat tougher to imagine a "beautiful" quartersawn Am black blank. And while feathercrotch is almost synonymous with exhibition in Am black, it's somewhat uncommon in English.