So here's the next tale of a gun with a story, and provenance. This time the rifle is a Model 1881 Marlin that was made too early to be recorded in Marlin records, which start around serial number 4000. This one in the 1500 range, so likely a late first year gun.
I was sitting at my table at our monthly Oregon Arms Collectors show one Sunday a couple decades ago, when a friend walks up to my table. He tells me a local gun shop is closing their doors, and he saw an old Marlin in there I might be interested in. He didn't know the model, caliber, or anything much, except, "It's got one of those forked buttplates?"
So of course it interested me, but the shop was closed that day. The next day I called from work, and they were open. I had to work all day, but by lunch time I couldn't stand it anymore. I picked up my tools and left early.
Got to the gun shop and walked around looking for anything that might match his description, but nothing there even close. I was disappointed it had sold, or the info was wrong. I turned to leave, and sitting at the end of a shelf unit was an old whiskey barrel with a bunch of junker guns stuffed in it. I saw this buttplate sticking up out of the barrel.
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) I stepped over to it and pulled out a very unusual 1881 Marlin large frame rifle.
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) I stood there looking it over, and then looked at the hang tag on it, and the price was well under $500. I took it to the counter, and trying to keep my best poker face, I asked if the price was correct? The counter guy says, "Let me call the owner, and ask."
So he calls the owner up, and then turns to me and says, "If you want it he said he'd knock $50 off."
Now I wasn't trying to get more off, but happily accepted, and home we went! I sit down with it at home, and while I'm looking at the caliber marking, I see this:
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) "E FLUES BAY CITY"?? Wonder who that is? I call a friend who is also a member of this forum, and he tells me he just saw that name mentioned in the Single Shot Exchange, and it was a gun Gary Quinlin was selling. So I call Gary up and ask what he knows about E Flues, and he tells me he's got a Ballard Schuetzen rifle built by E Flues, but it's packed to go to a gun show, and documentation is with it. But he directs me to The Double Gun Journal, and the Bay City Historical Society.
cont.