I've been following yesterday's (4/20 & 21) exchange of posts Re: the Farrow rifle in the For Sale section. Coincidentally, I received the May 2008 issue of the American Rifleman yesterday.  On the back "I have this old gun" page, the writer discusses a Lee Navy.  It's not a Single Shot, but there is a point to be made.  I've been interested in the Lee Navy for over 50 years.  I've looked at scores of them over the years.  The writer says the rifle in the photo is "NRA Fair", with 50 to 60 % of original finish.  I disagree.  I have never seen a Lee Navy as nice as the one pictured.  I have seen photos of 2 Lees that looked that good and both were advertised (correctly, IMHO) at 95 %+.  The rest that I have seen were in far worse condition, but are usually advertised as in "NRA Good" condition.  The writer cites the 28th Ed. of the Blue Book of Gun Values and says that a military Lee Navy in 60 % condition is worth $1,000, then ups the value to $1,500 on scarcity.  The writer then goes on to say that one of the 54 rifles recovered from the USS Maine would be worth 4 times that amount.  Flayderman (9th Ed) says the Lee Navy musket is worth $950 in VG and $2,000 in Exc. condition.   

All I can say is that I have been tracking sales of Lee Navy Muskets over a long time and tracking them intensively for the last year and I think the experts are wrong. Last December, I went to the Reno gun show with $2,500 in my pocket.  I went especially to get a Lee Navy.  I saw 2 for sale.  One of the USS Maine rifles went for $35,000.  I was offered one in legitimate "NRA Good" (or maybe worse) condition for $4,000, which I declined.  The rifle pictured would easily bring $3,900 and quite possibly something in excess of $4,000.  The average rifle, much used by the USMC and certainly no better than NRA Good, is selling for $3,250 to $3,500.

In the Technical Q&A section of the May 2008 issue of AR (page 42) someone asks about restoring a 1915-vintage 1903 Springfield to original condition.  The Technical Editor advised the guy to forget the restoration and that "it is what it is".  The Rock Island Arsenal WW2 rework changed the rifle too much and restoration was impractical.

What does all this have to do with a Farrow?  Read the Farrow thread.  Flayderman's 9th Ed says a Farrow No. 1 in VG condition is valued at $4,000 and in Exc. condition is valued at $10,000.  Are they selling for that?  I don't know, but to support such values, a Farrow must have a Farrow barrel, one of the 14 groove jobs, in near perfect condition and all the rest of the bells & whistles.  Lacking the Farrow barrel, "it is what it is".

MI-shooter wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2008 at 12:34pm:


Amen. Regards, Joe

I wish I could buy every Ballard I wanted at prices listed in Flayderman's! I know he's often high on some models, but I've yet to see a Ballard sell for anywhere near what his estimates are.
I do agree, that in order to get Bluebook prices, or Flayderman prices, the gun should be original equipment, and not relined or rebarreled. I've owned enough nicely redone singleshots, and they never seem to have any resale value when the barrels are replaced or messed with. (unless Pope, Schoyen, etc. messed with the barrels! )

I am not a collector, although I would be if I had any money, but I can understand the attraction of a gun that was made in the late 1800s and has survived unmodified or molested for over 130 years.  I sometimes place my government model Borchardt  on a gun stand and marvel at how it survived all that time without falling victim to a well meaning enthusiast who might have converted it to sporting use back when they could be had cheaply.  On the other hand I have a nice 03 Springfield that I bought in mint surplus condition in '64 for $60 dollars and immediately sporterized it because that was the cheapest way to get a sporting arm of the day.  Gun magazines and home gunsmithing books (not to mention Howe's Modern Gunsmithing) were full of articles describing conversions of these rifles to sporting configurations.  I just barreled my Springfield up in .35 Whelen recently and restocked it for the third time.  You should hear the chastising comments I get about defiling valuable vintage military piece to make a custom sporter.  Many of these things are driven by the philosophy of the time and are hard to fathom 100 years later out of context.  THOP

As far as singleshots go,for me at least,re-lining the barrel on good to very good is acceptable.
So is rebarreling on same originals that have had oldtimey gunwork done on them [besides POPE,etc.].

Take a walk thru a museum and gander at stuff 400 years old and try to say it was never tweaked a little.

I think many old singleshot rifles were "tweaked", and some of them are worth a lot more if the right guy tweaked them!
I personally would also love to own just totally original singleshots, but realistically I can't. The ones that have some problems or are in need of TLC are more within my price range. 
I do own some that are 100% original, but the ones that were modified many years ago seem to tug at my heart strings more! When I see something that an earlier owner changed to personalize or make it shoot better, it just talks to me!

A solution to the barrel is to get a new barrel with the same profile and put a thin blue on it. Have a great shooter that can become unrestored again when desired.  Badger barrels and relining cost about the same.  Have it both ways.