Vagabond,
I did a little research on the 24 a couple years back and if memory serves it was produced from the 30's to the mid 50's. It was a mid price range shotgun for the working man, much plainer and stouter than their higher end guns. I haven't checked a Blue Book price on it since then, but last time I looked they were supposed to be around $450 for one in good condition. However, the only ones I have ever seen for sale were priced well above this, and were almost completely devoid of any finish or bluing. I've never seen one with even half its blue. I would guess that yours would be worth quite a bit more.
I love the model 24, my dad has one (12 g) and it was the 1st shotgun I ever shot 30+ years ago. He bought it used in the mid 50's after he came back from Korea and used it for over 20 years. He bought my brothers and I brand new shotguns when we each were about 12 before he ever bought a new gun for himself. He carried it in his truck (worked rural line construction in NE) every day during hunting season as well as hard huntin every weekend and it probably put more birds in the bag than most people will ever see. He also used it for some league trap shooting for a few years. It probably has close to 100,000 rounds down its tubes. It finally started to malfunction, the right barrel won't fire occasionally, I think it needs either a new firing pin or spring, but it seems that it was a pretty durable gun.
I had looked into getting dad's gun restored to like new condition as a present for him (still might do it) and found out that Winchester/USRAC no longer has any parts, and absolutely will not do any work on them even in their custom shop. When asked if they could recommend any good smith in my area that could do it, they gave me the name of a guy 1000 miles away. Take a map and draw a circle with a 1000 mile radius centered from northeast Nebraska, ARE THERE NO GOOD SMITHS IN THIS AREA??? Can anybody recommend one for this project?
Bergie