Re: Quality 1 transitional Fulton guns
Dan, LLoyd, the bottom three picture shown is a transitional gun. It has no maker's name, still has the squared lug, but now has the slanted breech balls. The top 3 pictures are a Syracuse gun showing the round breech balls. They both have the large convex ribs on the bottom of the reciever. The serial number on the top gun is from 1887. There are no records that we know of and the only information we do have is a 3"x6" notepad that Lyman Cornelius Smith gave to his brother-in-law George (Livermore) when the gun works was sold to John Hunter Sr. In this notepad from an accountant it shows on one page the number of hammer and hammerless guns made in 1886, in August it shows 15 hammerless guns made and the total price of them. This was the start of the hammerless guns in 1886. The total from August to December was 286 hammerless guns made. Again, the serial numbers for hammerless guns started at 16000, then 18,000, 19,000, 20,000, 22,000 up to 23,552 in my records. So the years made after 1886 is speculation from that notepad of how many were made in those months to a guess on how many then were made in the following years. I have 382 serial numbers of hammer and hammerless guns as of August 2023. There are a few guns that are Syracuse guns sent back to Fulton for a new set of barrels, for-ends, stocks etc. all done in the Syracuse style. Like I stated earlier, I don't have any Quality 1 guns in my records, but I have 8 guage guns listed and they are all Quality 2's.
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