Cool
If you know anymore history or possibly even half truths about the gun please tell us.

Also probably hurt the collector value price.

Looks like a conversion action with a 74 lockplate. Did the stated 1873 manufacture date come from a factory letter ? All things being equal- if that gun was for sale in its prior untouched heavily rusted state and in its current cleaned state it would without a doubt bring more money with the rust...probably a lot more money.

I disagree. I buy and sell whats probably an above average number of sharps sporting rifles and see a fair number of them bought and sold. The sanded/cleaned wood hurt the gun. The cleaned metal look killed it. I generally dont get into contentous things on here and keep my opinion to myself but cleaning the metal on that rifle really hurt its value. You scraped away thousands of dollars with the rust. people buying these kind of guns are buying the rust and wear and bruises. They arent buying blueing. You cant grade a sharps buffalo gun like a model 70 winchester. Like it or not you hurt the value of this gun-big time. It should never have been cleaned like that

Dave Please tell me you didn't scrape that stock.  Anyone can see from a mile that is not the original patina.  That stock has been taken down with a scraper or whatever. Between the cleaned metal and scraped stock  that gun lost $5000-$7000  or value. If it's a 1869  then maybe more.  If you did the cleaning you should cut a check to the owner.  It should be a crime.  I seriously feel sick but this kind of thing happens anymore. Not only that but it gets posted on a site  pertaining to antique guns as a success...

Forgive the bad picture. Its dark, bad lighting, cell phone pic etc. take a look at this gun. Its covered in rust. Has a decent bore and I could scrape the metal, replace the wood, straighten the bent tang and have a gun exactly like the one the original poster posted. Dig deeper and you find out it was shipped to Ft Griffin Texas. A buffalo hunter bought this gun off the rack of Frank Conrads store which was part of a cluster of thrown together tents and plank buildings on the plains of north Texas. What happened to that buffalo hunter ? No one will ever know for sure but a lot of them met untimely ends at the hands of unfriendly Comanches. look closer at the gun and you will see the barrel has been cut down to 20"- then carried so much that the edges on the underside of the octagon barrel have been worn smooth. What happened to this gun that its in such poor shape ? I dont know but the upper tang has been bent down and the end of the lower tang was broken off. Was it taken off a dead hide hunter by a Comanche then used as a club in some desperate last stand then left on the plains ? No idea but when I pick up this gun I can see the history it lived through. It was there. When I pick up a gun like the one Dave cleaned I just see another cleaned sharps with a shiny barrel...

Pic

I won't get into the debate about cleaning vs. value.  But please do replace the Allen-headed forearm screw.  If the threads are unmolested, original screws should still available from Dixie, S&S, and possibly other sources.

Bill Lawrence

No Jeff not a troll. Been here for going on a decade. Instead of name calling Ill just say that anyone who has seen more than one original sharps knows that wood has been cleaned and that cleaning the metal like was done did more damage yet. All the best and Im done with this as it could go on forever,

Zack

  Probably another $1000 down the drain.

Red rust is active rust; it's still causing damage and by no stretch can be called "patina".  Speaking as a restorationist and a professional appraiser, it seems to me that Schuetzendave did the right thing.

Bill Lawrence

Dave- that barrel looks terrible. Im sorry it just does. It looks like a poorly cleaned gun. That grey is what I am referring to when I say "bright". A patinated gun or even a gun that was abused and rusted but continued to be used doesnt look like that. There are lots of other less aggressive ways of neutralizing active rust if the gun was truly 100% active red rust. When people replace parts on antique guns actively rusting the part is the first step in matching the patina. The way that gun was cleaned it screams from a mile away that the metal was cleaned. That gun gets listed by an auction house and the description will read rare 1869 sharps with highly desireable heavy barrel in .50cal. Condition: cleaned metal and wood- the "cleaned metal and wood" part is not a good thing. It is not like saying very clean 1955 Chevy Apache. With many antique firearms and Sharps in particular the metal and wood cleaning easily cut the value in half or more. The more pics that are sent and the more I look at them the more sad I feel that the rifle was damaged so.   I stand by everything I said previously.

Don- buy a shiloh if thats what you want. Forrest Fenn owns sitting bulls pipe but does he clean off the grime and smoke it ? Maybe you would so it wouldnt just be a tomato stake on the wall. The rusty exterior of the gun Dave killed wasnt keeping it from being shot. That attitude ruins so many artifacts of our past each day. Scares me.

You know Zack I tried just what you suggest, I have Pope High Wall Schuetzen (last muzzle loading barrel Harry made) in my care and I would not trade one shot from that rifle for a 1000 shots from the modern High Wall I bought to take the pressure off the Pope. I do not shoot it often but I do shoot it occasionally to keep Harry from throwing a lightening bolt through my heart for not shooting it.

DP

Yes it is Bill.

Schuetzenmiester wrote on May 6^th, 2019 at 12:14pm:

Seemed, past tense, to be an interesting project. Is perfection a one way street?

Hi Dave- no i am seriously just curious. If im wrong im happy to say so. From the "discussion" over there it doesnt sound like there were any actual opinions or actual discussion. This isnt a personal attack man. I simply expressed my opinion. I buy a fair number of sharps. I look at a fair number of sharps and I see a lot of sharps bought and sold. My opinion is based on those experiences. If there is other information or discussion that actually is robust and refutes my opinions i am happy to weigh those objectively otherwise this thread has gone on too long in this direction with me admittedly to blame in large part

rollingblock wrote on May 11^th, 2019 at 8:41pm:


Yes, really! This phenomenon seems to be pretty common among old sidehammer Sharps sporting rifles. Of course they're worth more if kept in nice shape, but even rusty they bring thousands of dollars regularly.

Yeah, rusty old Sharps always bring more than rusty old rolling blocks, except, there was this dug up 50-70 one out of Montana with the initials GAC on it.......