There was a big auction of the Savage R&D and reference collections back in 1987/88. Peter Dowd, Village Gun Shop in Northborough, MA, bought a lot of the collection and then sold it off in smaller lots to other gun shops. The Kittery Trading Post in Kittery, ME, and J.R. LaRue in Portsmouth, NH, moved a lot of Dowd's Savages. LaRue ran a full page ad that was all R&D and reference collection guns in the old GUN LIST.
I still have 1 R&D Savage, a 24V, SN RD1137, that came from the Kittery Trading Post.
You never know where you're going to run across an odd Savage. My lowest SN 1920 came out of a crappy little gun show in Leadville, CO., SN 1014, the 15th 1920 to come off the line on day 1 of production. Not in the best of shape, IOW "well used", but a 1st day of production gun is still a 1st day of production gun.
EDIT: I understand that Mr. Dowd is doing business on-line via
www.yankeeartifacts.com. This IS NOT an endorsement of Yankeeartifacts and I recommend that you do your homework before buying from any on-line dealer.
