Re: Please Help ID this thing it's driving me insane!!! Archived Message
Posted by SGT on July 24, 2008, 10:16 am, in reply to "Please Help ID this thing it's driving me insane!!!" |
Your gun would be considered a "transitional" gun from the late Syracuse to the early Hunter style frame. This gun has the Hunter style smaller breech balls, but retains the Syracuse era raised ridges on the bottom of the frame. Hundreds of these early guns were made without grade stamps/marks; but this exammple would most likely be classified as a Quality or Grade 2. Engraving styles on the early Grade/Quality 2 guns varied from no engraving (other than maker's name), to simple line engraving, to line and small scroll flourishes in the center of each lockplate before the single bird motiff was standardized. I suggest you contact Cody with your serial number and inquire as to the possibility of the grade assignment being recorded within those early shipping ledges. This would be your best bet; but is certainly no guarantee, as I have seen copies of pages from the early ledges that have nothing but "XX" and "XXX" notations in the grade column. Our best theory is that the "XX" notation denotes a gun made without a grade mark/stamp; and the "XXX" notation denotes a gun made into a different grade for some unknown reason. By the time these early serial numbers extended into the 34,XXX range, one will see less and less such entrys; but with the earliest ledger serial number records one will see long columns with nothing but XX and XXX entries under the grade column. We believe all this grade confusion is associated with the early transitional frames. I have seen one early A2 grade extractor gun in the 35XXX range that is not recorded as an A2 in these early ledges (it is pictured in the Houchins book); and even more interesting, the cover gun for the Houchins book is also an early gun from this era in the 3X,XXX; and even though the the water table of that gun is marked "special", it's recorded ledger grade is simply "XXX". As someone noted, these early guns are the most interesting.
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