Boys' SS Rifles includes a reprint of two pages from the 1894 catalog, showing four variants of the "new" 1894 Ideal model.  The "1896" Cornell reprint I just received (most of which is devoted to the same Tip-Ups & pistols of earlier catalogs) shows only a one page parts list for the Ideal model, & but no descriptions of the complete rifles.  The original catalog  is clearly dated 1896 on its front cover, so Cornell did not misidentify it.  

If the illustrations showing & describing the 1894 model had already been prepared & printed in the 1894 catalog, what can this "1896" catalog be but some kind of "printer's error" that was not recalled by Stevens? 

Suspect that Stevens would have been careful enough to review the 1896 catalog before distributing it and wasting their advertising dollars.
Does the 1896 catalog look like it could have been a supplemental release to the 1895 catalog?

Note: Edited to change a fat-fingered 1894 date to 1895.

Bill,
You're making good sense to me.

From the 1890s I have only the 1895 and the 1898 catalogs.  Even if my copy of BSSR was not packed away, I doubt if I could tell whether Grant's pages are from an 1894 catalog or from an incomplete 1895 one.

But having unsuccessfully tussled with Cornell's owner over the accuracy of her publications and having just revisited Cornell's website, I will note the following:
   - Both my catalogs are slightly less than 7" wide and slightly more than 4" tall;
   - The real front covers have a couple of Art Nouveau embellishments but otherwise bear no relationship to the Cornell covers;
   - The real catalogs have the year on the cover and on the first page, the latter also with the release month, February;
   - Even the 1898 catalog still presents the tip-up line first;
   -1896 was when Page bought the Stevens company and it was not a painless transition;
   - Most important, your 1896 reproduction has 48 pages while my real catalogs are paginated and have 64 and 80 pages, respectively;

Putting this all together, my best GUESS is that your reproduction 1896 catalog is NOT a full-line catalog, whether the "fault" lies with Cornell, the original's printer, or some decision or snafu tied to the ownership change at Stevens.

I wish I could be more help or had more facts.

Bill Lawrence

To answer your specific question, in the 1895 catalog the "Ideal"-line rifles are identified with 3 digits; by 1898, the company has switched to the familiar 2-digit designations.

Maybe it would help if you reproduced Grant's pages.

Also, I'm not claiming that Cornell's "1896" catalog is a "supplement"; but I do wonder why it contains so fewer pages than the catalogs that precede and follow it.

Bill Lawrence

I have two illustrations, one with an open rear sight, designated 107 (plain wood) and 108 (fancy wood) and one with a tang sight, designated 109 (plain) and 110 (fancy).  I  would assume that the same picture blocks were used in the 1895 catalog as in the 1894.  Also. a possible source of future confusion is that the guns could be 44s since the sharper/smaller action corner is not obvious.

I'm still not sure what you're trying to "prove" here.

Bill Lawrence

Are the two pages from the Stevens catalog shown in Grant's book actually from the Stevens 1894 catalog?
Grant's books do contain errors.

Redsetter wrote on May 30^th, 2018 at 11:48am:

Or the print setter for Grant's book simply grabbed a wrong type number for that book page?

I hope this will help.

This afternoon I've gone through the US Patent Office pre-1976 database to find the April 17, 1894 patent.  It was somewhat slow going because that database is now accessible only by patent number, which, of course, is very, very seldom noted in pre-1900 references.

But for those who don't already know, the patent is 518,448, issued to Chicopee's Edward H. Elder and applied for by him on January 06, 1894.

Now, Elder was undoubtedly developing his action in 1893 or even earlier, but I have never even heard of a Stevens based thereon with no patent markings, let alone marked with some equivalent of "Patent Applied For".

Therefore, the Stevens 1894 catalog would surely be the best candidate to carry the first general-public announcement of the company's new gun.

Next, Redsetter notes that Grant's two pages have 3 illustrations while mine have only 2.  So Grant's catalog is not mine.  Does that absolutely prove that Grant had an 1894 catalog?  Unfortunately, no, for we don't know whether his catalog was complete or, being incomplete, he assumed it was an 1894 because it used the loose term "new".  Moreover, if his catalog was incomplete, he might even have had a later version of the 1895 catalog (Stevens is known to have issued multiple catalogs/supplements in a given year) or even an 1896 catalog.

Which brings us back to Redsetter's Cornell reprint.  As I noted earlier, that reprint has significantly fewer pages than my 1895 and 1898 catalogs.  Therefore, again, my best guess is that the Cornell reprint is not mislabeled but "incomplete" for any of several possible reasons.

Last, for me the most pertinent question is still: is it the 1896 or the 1897 catalog (not Cornell's 17 page "price reduction" supplement) that contains the last mention of the 107-110 series?  (In the 1898 catalog the 44 has become the "Ideal" rifle and is offered in upgrades from 45 through 55.)

Bill Lawrence

In the 1895 catalog (and in Grant's?), the 107-110 rifles are referred to as the "Ideal".  By 1898, the "Ideal" moniker had been transferred to the 44.  All's fair in love, war, and advertising, especially in this case, since I wonder if the new "new Ideal" line wasn't mostly one of Page's ideas for sprucing the Steven's image up.  If so, I'd say it worked.

You could well be right about the loading tools inspiring the name.

Bill Lawrence

Why don't we name it now?  How about Shooter's Dream?

Schuetzenmiester wrote on May 30^th, 2018 at 7:29pm:


Not bad at all.  (Esp. since "Rifleman's Rifle" has already been taken.)

uscra112 wrote on May 30^th, 2018 at 10:42pm:


I wouldn't--not if it contradicts Grant, who had the benefit of many more yrs of research devoted to this subject, which was for Sharpe not a principal interest. Not that he made it up--can easily imagine someone at the Stevens plant telling him this, mistakenly, when he was accumulating his data in the '30s.

In my mind, Sharpe's credibility is forever tarnished by his circulation (if not invention) of the Winchester A5 "compensating errors" myth.   

Redsetter wrote on May 30^th, 2018 at 11:34pm:


Actually, there is no contradiction, as Grant quotes the same date of '96 in his first book, p. 65.