Shrapnel, very interesting shotgun. Funny that you post this today - yesterday I was in a small gun shop near Jacksonville NC and noticed an old shotgun on the wall (for sale). It caught my eye because it was so unusual; it was marked as a "Burgess shotgun built by Bannerman" and looked a little more "complicated" externally than your shotgun. Don't really know what I was looking at.
Odessa; If it was made by Bannerman than it was a Spenser and they were more complicated out side, Bannerman bought out Spenser when they went bankrupt and continued making the shotguns for quite a few years.
It is a well made gun, much as the rifle. Andrew Burgess had hundreds more firearm patents than John Browning. He was a very innovative man and most of all the Marlin patents used today are from Burgess.
Shrapnel; First I would like to say the heck with the shotgun, I think that the rifle is the real rarity!!! I have two shotguns - I would gladly trade both of them and more for that rifle!
I have done a lot of research on Andrew Burgess over the years and I have ran across this same information - I do not think it's even close to being correct. In an old issue of COLLECTORS DIGEST there was an article about Andrew Burgess that was written by a relative of his, Elmer Burgess. This is where I believe it said that he was second to Browning in firearm patents with Browning haveing over 900 and Burgess over 600, I now think that was very exagerated!!! I have searched US Patents for several years and have only found 80 patents by Andrew Burgess, I think this is very close to being all of them. I have only 58 Browning patents in my data but I do not have any for handguns - of the 80 Burgess patent there a quite are few for handguns, in fact 15 just for semi-auto pistols.
As for Marlin's being based on Burgess patents I think the lever locking of the model 39 is the only Burgess patent still in use, the levers of the other rifles are basically the same design but are not used to lock the action so that might be considered a modified Burgess design. It appears Andrew Burgess was only involved in the design of the 1881 and all later designs were patented by others with L. L. Hepburn named on many of the pre 1900 designs.
Gene
