Ordered the Savage & Stevens Arms book and started reading, like the book... all Stevens firearms had a unique model number in their catalogs including the name of the model.  Examples: all the Favorites were identified as #17 - #27 and #20 with details for each

Of interest:  have 3 Tip UP's. 
* 1898 Catalog: Stevens No 2 - Stevens No 7 (Premier) and Stevens No 11 and 13. (Ladies Model) stamped on the left side of the Actions  
* Then in another 1898 catalog listed as Stevens No 5 and No's 11 & 13
Then in the 1935 catalog, the Favorites became the No 27 and 20 (smooth bore for 22 & 32 shot shells)
So I have a No 2 Tip Up in 25RF but also have 2 Tip Up shotguns (16 & 12's) that are not listed
Now the mystery Q' ... What was a Stevens No 1?  It was a Tip Up made between 1872 and 1897 called the 'Sporting Rifle No 1' in 32-38-44 Long Rim Fires's or center fire

Now another bit of information in the book: in May 1915 Stevens management sold all their production facilities to the New England Westinghouse Winchester  Company because Stevens did not want to manufacture military firearms for the war effort. After WWI, the government issued a subpoena to Winchester deeming that they overpriced prices for the 1,500,000 Nagants made for Russia.  So Westinghouse BURNED ALL THE STEVENS RECORDS.  So now we know the rest of the story

Frank - my typo error ... was New England Westinghouse Company not Winchester 

With respect to the ownership of Stevens during WWI, it stands to reason that somewhere in Mass. state tax or other records, changes in ownership of Mass.-based companies would be recorded.  I have no idea how to go about investigating this, & I suspect it would require legal assistance to do it properly.

But I did find this record, which raises more questions than it answers: (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Why no record of Westinghouse, Savage, or any other changes since the original incorporation date?

New England Westinghouse was formed with the sole purpose of buying Stevens Arms Co. and taking over production of Nagant rifles for sale to Russia. They also got Stevens-Duryea, and the Stevens Tool Co., but sold off the tool division and shut down the automobile manufacturing division.
New England Westinghouse was part of Westinghouse Electric, and the purchase of all Stevens assets was completed in 1916. Westinghouse's efforts to stall government investigators by destroying all their firearms records did not work. The US Supreme court eventually closed down New England Westinghouse in 1926. The Savage Arms. Co. bought Stevens after WWI in 1920. Somehow Westinghouse was able to sell Stevens to Savage Arms Co. without even owning it? Amazing! Pretty sure Savage wouldn't have given them any money if they didn't own the company.
Take a look at Savage Arms Co.'s own web site history timeline. Even they think they bought Stevens. 
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Is that what it will take for you to believe Savage bought it from Westinghouse? Or will you need another reason once this question is answered? 
Why the big resistance to accepting Westinghouse owned Stevens at that time?

marlinguy wrote on Apr 1^st, 2019 at 6:34pm:


I have none at all.  What is your resistance to obtaining firm documentation that that's what occurred?  Seems interesting to me even if it merely confirms what has been assumed to be true. 

This may be throwing the proverbial skunk into the tent, but here goes:  On a parallel note, Hopkins and Allen made a bid for making Belgian M-1889 Mauser rifles with a too low bid, and lost their shirt on the deal, they shut down their bread and butter products and were in bankruptcy by 1917, and some sort of a war production board took over.  The same Westinghouse branch managed the financial affairs, and production was turned over to Marlin which had ties to the Westinghouse people.  One story was that the plant made M-1917 BARs, which I have never seen, but the Texas Military Forces Museum in Austin has a Colt "potato digger" machine gun with a Marlin roll stamp that looks bad, but shoots good.  Marlin bought the H&A machinery in 1921.

Both Stevens and H&A made good barrels, so the government could not let that pass when we needed good rifled products.  I was not aware until today that the same Westinghouse division was involved in Stevens also.  The Stevens name survived, and the Hopkins & Allen name re-emerged when George Numrich bought it from Marlin, for a few under-hammer rifles.

James Hays

LarryLee wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2019 at 1:38am:


It is a bright idea, but it might be more productive to concentrate your search on  the years 1934-5, which was the period that the Nye Committee in Congress was investigating war-profiteering during WWI.  

However, you still may find nothing, because a fire only large enough to destroy these records wouldn't necessarily have been front-page news; although, to serve as an alibi for the missing records, management of the factory (then owned by Savage) would have had to report the fire to the local fire dept. or other authority.  Don't you think it's interesting that so many "know" all about this fire, but none can report when it occurred?

If this destruction occurred during the Nye hearings, so long after the war, seems to me that (had those records actually been subpoenaed) Savage/Stevens could very plausibly have alleged that they had been discarded soon after the war because there appeared no good reason to preserve such outdated & unneeded "rubbish."