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