Yesterday's show was amazing! Great crowd, and some amazing displays! I provided four Remington singleshot rifles for the RSA display; two Hepburns, and two Rolling Blocks. 
During the day I got paged to the front entrance to meet a couple who had a question about a Marlin shotgun the man had purchased off Gunbroker of all places. He opened the gun case and I about fell over when I saw a Marlin 12 ga. shotgun, but with a lever action! On the left side of the receiver was a metal tag affixed to the side that read, "Property of Marlin Firearms Co. R&D" and a number after that! 
It appears Marlin had taken a Model 1898 pump shotgun action, and fitted a barrel and mag tube, but modified it to operate with a typical Marlin lever. It was pistol gripped, as was the lever style, and actually showed signs of having been cycled and fired a fair amount, but in beautiful condition still. The "forearm" was simply two thin pieces of wood, one per side between the barreel and mag tube. An amazing piece of history, and he said he had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to bid on it at closing and win it. Wouldn't say what it cost, but pretty nifty.

ssdave wrote on Aug 24^th, 2025 at 10:44am:


Bad weekend for going to the coast Dave! They had the Hood to coast run Saturday, and hotels all over the northern Oregon Coast were packed! Many runners had to just turn around and drive home after running all day.

Almost forgot to mention a couple neat things I bought at the show! Met a guy walking around with a brand new Lyman Super Targetspot 10x scope. Appeared to maybe never even been slid on bases as it was still perfect all over. He had a fair price, but I needed it like another hole in my head. I offered $100 less and he quickly sold it. Should have offered less as he said it was part of a gun deal and he had to take it or no deal.
The really happy find was an Ideal bullet sizer; one of the hand held types Ideal sold. It was in a 2x4 block with cutouts for the tool plus a half dozen dies, and bullet plugs of two sizes. I was happy to get it until I showed it to a tool collector who asked me if I'd seen the rollstamp on it? I never even opened the tool up, just paid the seller's price. I opened it up to see a tiny rollstamp that read, "A.O. Niedner Dowagiac, Mi." I quickly went from happy to very happy! My friend has a huge antique tool collection and said he'd never seen a tool with Niedner's stamp on it.

Joe Do... wrote on Aug 24^th, 2025 at 11:41pm:


Thanks Joe!! Terry thought he'd gotten it from Michael, and said the Niedner marking was probably why he bough it.