Morning Karl.
You've put cat amongst the pigeons there -as you know that both of these guns are very thin on the ground indeed.
Ironically I know little to nothing of the Theoben- other than it is rare. Going by the pics there it's a lovely looking compact hunter. Very desirable indeed.
My heart has ruled my head on this one though. Despite it being lower spec, if I had a choice I'd opt for the Bavarian. My rationale being that the concept of Venom buying the raw materials in from Germany to build the gun from the well known if sadly overlooked manufacturer and giving it a big aesthetic and specification facelift really appealed to me back in the day. Clearly for BSF as a whole it would not help their forthcoming demise but that just adds to the story. They took a model that didn't sell in numbers, made a small number and sold what they could. I've heard tell of numbers being below 20 total run.
I'm also very intrigued by what Venom did internally on them as having been inside a couple I know they are not as well finished as other German offerings such as HW or Diana and as standard run on leather piston heads which must have throttled back efficiency and performance. The gun is also lightweight as guns go and again as std had a very stiff mainspring which Venom must have wanted to change and improve.
So in this gun you have a mini story of the demise of both the main manufacturer and the tuning/ conversion company all in one easy on the eye bundle.
If it were mine I would not be able to resist a little session on some paper targets or some knock downs as I don't exempt any of my collection from getting used. It wouldn't however accompany me through the woods and in a hide against the squirrels as I would fear scratching an incredibly rare gun!
Nice piece of airgun history there. And incidentally only the second Venom Bavaria I can recall being mentioned/ shown/ sold or whatever on the BBS in my time here.
Dave