Several Forum members, most especially uscra112, have forgotten more about such things than I'll ever know.  So I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong:1900/1901.

Bill Lawrence

There are at least two No. 50 catalogs.  The 128-page edition is generally accepted as being from 1902 or possibly very late 1901.  The 142-page edition is generally assigned to very early 1903.  I assume you have the 128 pager.

Bill Lawrence

As some of you may remember, several years ago, with the help of many Forum members, Redsetter and I did our best to draft a chronological list of Stevens catalogs from approximately 1900 to 1920.  Based on that long and involved effort, the first Stevens catalog that both describes and pictures the 44-1/2 action and all the grades of its rifles is the first edition of Catalog No. 51 (136 pages, issued in late 1903).  I can verify the date because I have an original example with its postally-stamped shipping envelope.  Thus if Sure shot's No. 50 is the third edition (141 pages, early 1903), it might very well only mention the 44-1/2 as a "coming attraction".

Bill Lawrence

My Stevens catalog #50 reprint is by R&R books and has 128 pages. Cornell publications has an abridged Stevens catalog which they date as c1902, which lists the 44 1/2 rifle, I have a copy of it.

Sorry no, this is all I have which is printed inside:
Reprinted By
R&R Books
3020 East Lake Road 
Livonia NY 14487

I couldn’t find any info online for this company.

I have catalog #50 and #52 by R&R, they are nice quality reprints with nice glossy paper and covers.

Try Abebooks.com

Firstly, for those of you who wish to nit-pick the important but frustrating topic of pre-WWI Stevens catalogs yet again, I encourage you to engage the Forum’s SEARCH option to find the related topic that Redsetter and I “chaired” (back about this time in 2018 as I remember).  For now, I’m going to make only two comments:

     1.  Red, myself, and a substantial number of contributors to our survey eventually concluded that Cornell’s Stevens catalogs specifically cannot be trusted as to covers, date assignments, and sometimes even contents.  Indeed, I’ll go even further out on my own limb and opine that Rob and Abby are in it far more for the money than any desire to preserve history or expand knowledge.

     2.  Too many Stevens catalogs are not actually dated and the best one can do is search them for clues (often minute and sometimes conjectural) that make a date assignment reasonable.  For example, I don’t know of any Stevens catalog that’s “reliably dated” to either 1901 or 1902.  However, according to my notes, Forum member BP reported that his No. 50 catalog contains the text "On January 1, 1902, we were the largest producers of firearms for sporting purposes in the world."  Unfortunately, BP didn’t mention whether his catalog was an original or reprint or give its page count.  (As posted earlier, there are at least two No. 50 catalogs, which can be most easily distinguished by their page counts.)

In short, I can only hope that someday, someone who has amassed a definitive collection of original Stevens catalogs, hopefully with their postally-dated shipping envelopes, will be moved to create a monograph settling these questions.

Bill Lawrence

Please try Abe books again, as I found at least five new and used copies of the Stevens #50 catalog by R&R from different sellers early this morning.

For the abridged Stevens catalog c1902, look at Cornell publications website. It’s around 20 pages and lists the Little Krag, the 44 1/2, and new models of single barrel and the model 350 double barrel shotgun, which are all in the #51 catalog but aren’t in the #50. 

Later tonight I will post a picture of the model 44 description page from my R&R #50 catalog reprint.