We start getting out of our range once you get much past $1000, but don't exclude something priced above and near that which you otherwise highly recommend.

My brother and I are wanting to show quite a lot of gratitude for a gentleman in our lives who has done many things throughout his life to help us out, not the least of which included many selfless acts of assistance to us since our Dad died suddenly in July.

We've debated how to go about it, and we're focusing right now on a commemorative gun... something that he can primarily display proudly in his home and will only be fired occasionally, for rare sport and entertainment.

We haven't ruled out "used" guns, but our guts have us looking exclusively at new guns so far (he says "FIB/second owner" stuff might work fine for what we're doing).

I know nothing about guns. My brother knows a bit, and we're finding some candidates we like, but I told him you guys might be able to give some more seasoned advice.

Here are a couple of examples of what we've found, and like... but we're hoping to find something a bit more polished... a bit more.. statesmanlike, if that makes sense.

http://www.auctionarms.com/search/di...temnum=8546184

That's commemorative pistols.

We also thought about a personalized pistol... not custom-fitted grip (this is a surprise, and this guy doesn't do guns enough to care about a custom-fitted grip), but something like an ivory (or something else) grip engraved with something special that my brother and I come up with.

And then, we like the look of a commemorative rifle of some kind ("not a 22 cal", my brother says), but we don't know if we can afford that without going to far above our preferred price range.

No matter what, we want a handsome display case of some kind to be part of the gift, or maybe some kind wall mount that makes the whole thing look nice (we're considering having my brother build a case, which would be much more humble -- and special to its recipient -- than something purchased).

Many thanks for any information/recommendations you guys can lend.