The fact that it has no serial # or caliber marking leads me to believe that it could be an employe built gun never made for sale. Any other opinions here? Possibly built from parts by an employee.  While Stevens made some models without caliber markings I don't recall ever seeing a Favorite un marked.

Odd that deHass hadn't seen one in .32RF, as it was a standard catalogued option even into the late '20s.  Odd also that a gun that's seen "little use" should have an extraction problem--which supports slumlord's conjecture about its origin.

Very earliest Favorites had a steel plate, so this hard-rubber plate suggests assembly sometime after about 1900, if I remember Grant's dating correctly.  Does the rcvr. have a "square-cut" profile, which was the earliest design, or a radiused one?  This difference is very obvious, but if you've never seen one of the "square-cuts," it might be difficult to visualize, and there's no photo of it in deHass.

And - my receiver is case colored.

Complicated stuff 

Hmmm! Grant in More Single-Shot ... p.44 quotes Allyn Tedman with reference to the 1894 model, saying: "The Favorite ...always sported a rubber shotgun butt plate.

Thanks for your responses.  I think I will spend some more time reading Grant.  I have all four vols. {Interestingly enough, the 3 later vols. are all inscribed by Grant to Ernest Munkachy - they came out of a Colorado auction a few years ago - Munkachy contributed a couple of photos at pp. 12-13 of Single-Shot ... Finale. I think the same Ernest Munkachy that was the agent for the Huron Valley Gun Collectors Club in Michigan. d. in Colorado. 

tornadobelt wrote on Mar 24^th, 2018 at 12:32pm:


Tedmon is my supreme favorite among gun-writers, and I believe I have copies of everything he ever wrote, but nobody knows everything, including me!  Therefor, I hate to contradict him, but Grant did just that on p. 7, 3rd paragraph from the bottom, Boys' SS Rifles.

For what it's worth I have one with the square cutaway, but it has the 1894 patent date on the barrel.  Shoots .32 Long RF.  s/n 568xx.   Stamped steel buttplate.   

Thanks for the responses. Just now posted 4 images in the Rifle Photos forum. Maybe that will help regarding some of the issues

uscra112 wrote on Mar 24^th, 2018 at 9:50pm:


Whole lot better than mine--and I've only got one!

Where do you figure the break between square and rounded corner is?   My 56888 is square, and my 83929 is rounded.  (Will look for others in the AM.)   

Wondering where the 7 o'clock extractor was abandoned, too.  If it was around 1901 like the 44s, there must be a lot of 7 o'clocks that fall after the straight sequence serial numbers were abandoned. 

BTW - I no longer consider deHaas as a final authority on anything.  I've caught him out a couple of other times making statements that turn out to be, (to be polite) uninformed  speculation on his part.   

In all fairness, he was writing a tremendous volume of stuff, which meant he didn't or couldn't take time to exhaustively research everything.  Not a few modern gunwriters have the same problem.

Does Cornell have Catalog #51?   If not, please offer your copy for Abby to reproduce. 

What is the evidence that #51 is 1901?   

Narrow extractor is cheaper to make.  QED.

uscra112 wrote on Mar 25^th, 2018 at 10:12am:


Good question that I can't answer with certainty, because I wrote that date (and also the note, "revised 1903") on the copy I have, which is a very old photocopy unidentified as to maker. Only thing I'm sure of is that the original source for those dates struck me as reliable, or I wouldn't have accepted them.  Now, 30+ yrs later, whenever I make such a notation, I always note the source!  

Quote:


Sadly, what I expected--just like ceasing to incorporate a mechanism for holding the lever tight.  Considering the several ultra cheap boys' rifles also in Stevens line, it's disappointing the company felt the need to cheapen one of its most famous products.

uscra112 wrote on Mar 25^th, 2018 at 11:22am:


Page the (probably crooked) book-keeper; how else does a clerk acquire the assets to take over the company?

uscra112 wrote on Mar 25^th, 2018 at 10:12am:


Not that I can find.  What is their quid pro quo, if you know?

Redsetter wrote on Mar 25^th, 2018 at 9:59am:

Strange about the dates... the reprint of Catalog #50 shows a date of 1902 on it.
How could the subsequent catalog #51 be dated one year earlier than its predecessor catalog?
Something's fishy.

BP wrote on Mar 25^th, 2018 at 7:24pm:


It couldn't; but is that 1902 date printed in the catalog, or a guesstimation?

BP wrote on Mar 25^th, 2018 at 8:23pm:


In other words I assume, it's not a date in the original catalog.  However, I think I've just found the source of that date:  there's a catalog date chart in Cope's book that I'd forgotten about, which gives 1902 for #50 and 1904 for #51.

Up to about 1900, catalogs were dated, sometimes month & day, so hard to see the logic in beginning with #50 in '02--unless Stevens really had published 49 catalogs up to that time...a little hard to believe.

But there's something about Cope's chart that is also a bit fishy--he provides numbers for catalogs going through 1942!  Whereas I've never seen a post-war catalog that wasn't dated like those pre-1900.  So don't know whether to trust this chart or not.

BP wrote on Mar 25^th, 2018 at 9:31pm:


Has anyone seen a date on the spine of an original catalog?  I haven't, though of course I haven't seen them all; still, inclines me to think it was added by Cornell, which could be checked out.

BP wrote on Mar 25^th, 2018 at 10:25pm:


NO!  If there was, there wouldn't be all this confusion! Beginning with #50, until 1919 when catalogs were dated again, Stevens management apparently thought it would be amusing to keep everyone guessing.

Well, not really, but it's true absolutely that someone decided it would "look better" if a catalog could not be identified as "last year's" merchandise; with only a number, a catalog could seem "ageless."  (Though what can be seen in some numbered catalogs are ink stamps over a particular item that say "discontinued.")

I have an original Stevens #53 catalog, and some pages have the purplish ink stamps over a particular item that reads "This Model Discontinued." It mentions a number of Championships that occurred in the year 1912 that were won with Stevens firearms. One page has a very small 9-01-12 tucked in a lower corner.
Perhaps my original #53 is a revised version of the original #53 catalog, that Cornell made a reprint of and shows with an issue date of 1911.

Phil,
Looking inside my #50 catalog, I see text that says "On January 1, 1902, we were the largest producers of firearms for sporting purposes in the world."
I think it might be safe to say that the #50 Stevens catalog was released after January 1, 1902.

Here's a partial list of Stevens catalogs from Cornell (and it looks like they've already reprinted Redsetter's catalogs so I don't think he need worry about a quid-pro-quo)...
Stevens 1902 - Pope Rifle Barrels and Specialties 
Stevens 1903 No. 50 Rifles, Shotguns, Pistols Catalog 
Stevens 1903 Gun Telescopes and Mountings Catalog 
Stevens c1904 Arms & Tool Company No. 51 (earlier issue) 
Stevens c1905 Arms & Tool Co. No.51 (later issue) 
Stevens 1907 Arms Company Catalog No 52 
Stevens c1908 Shotguns Catalog 
Stevens 1908 Guns and Gunning 
Stevens 1909 Firearms General Catalog & Component Parts No. 52 (revised) 
Stevens 1911 Firearms General Catalog & Component Parts No. 53 
Stevens 1912 Arms & Tool Co. Shotguns Catalog 
Stevens c1913 No 11 Rifle - Pistol Catalog 
Stevens c1914 Firearms # 54 General Catalog 
Stevens 1918 Arms Company Gun Catalog 
Stevens c1920 Firearms General # 55 Catalog

uscra112 wrote on Mar 26^th, 2018 at 12:54am:


But where does the 1903 date come from? 

Well, I just answered my own question by going through page by page looking for a dated testimonial.  There were none, but on p. 42 is a dated list of Pope's scores, the last one being 1-1-03.

BP wrote on Mar 26^th, 2018 at 5:46pm:


That was reported by my original (unknown) source:   "I wrote that date (1901),and also the note, "revised 1903," on the copy I have... Only thing I'm sure of is that the original source for those dates struck me as reliable, or I wouldn't have accepted them." 

However, 1901 for the 1st ed. may be too early, because Cope gave the date as 1902.   

Clearly Stevens ended their previous practice of dating catalogs in favor of revising undated, numbered, catalogs--seems a sure recipe for confusion.

BP wrote on Mar 26^th, 2018 at 8:05pm:


Of course!  But this particular one was no wild guess--it was very damned close! 

It IS a pretty good writeup, I've read it a number of times.  It's factually good, also, but the writer seems to have missed that fact that 1894 Favorites had real serial numbers until they were well up in five digits. (I have one that's 8xxxx).   And that the "bow" style mainspring seems to have been continued at least that long.   Wisner also missed that the thickness of metal in the "bow" mainspring for a Favorite is much less than for a 44.   The two springs are otherwise identical, but putting a 44 mainspring into a Favorite results in a gun that takes two hands to cock.  I've had to grind his spring down to somewhat less than 1/4" wide to make it work.

As far as 44s are concerned, I have no quibbles except that I'm never seen a 44 with the "cantilever" mainspring which is screwed down at one end, like the later '94 Favorites.  My log doesn't include this feature, because it's unseen unless the buttstock is removed.   I'm also not following the Savage era very assiduously, so it may be true above the 70,000 s/n, (which I think is the wartime break), and I've just not laid hands one one. Sharpe wrote that the 417 subfamily has the coiled mainspring strut, like the 1915 Favorites. I can't confirm.

Wisner is particularly good with the extractors.  I have yet to get one that isn't spot-on dimensionally, which is no mean feat given all the variations.  I wonder who did the study?