Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Aldo Leopold's Fox Double

I thought some of you guys might enjoy hearing about this. The Fox shotgun owned by Aldo Leopold, the pioneering conservationist and author of A Sand County Almanac was donated last week to the Leopold Center in Baraboo WI. Leopold (1887-1948) is considered the father of modern wildlife management and is one of the best nature writers the country has ever produced. He was also a lifelong hunter.

The shotgun, which has apparently been authenticated by a letter from Callihan, is a special order AH Fox, ordered in 1921 for $120. Some of you guys that know Fox shotguns can tell exactly what we're looking at here. Here's a few pictures:





[img]http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/ww146/RodPhillips/Leopoldsfoxdouble5_zpsbec8ad3d.jpg[/img]
I've been working on an article about Leopold as a hunter for the last year or so, and this gun turning up is of real interest to me. I'd welcome any insight you guys have about the gun (grade, etc).

Rod

What a wonderful shotgun.

Looks like an XE grade from here (I see that it has ejectors). The serial number will tell us the gauge. Nice Fox. If it is a 1921 gun it would have been made in Philadelphia before Savage bought & moved Fox to Utica in 1929. Thanks for sharing that.

tjw

I agree with Tom,that is to the best of my knowledge an XE grade with the lighter, later engraving style with the fox on the bottom in the nose up position. It also has the rebated frame on the bottom and top.

I have an earlier, more deeply chiseled version with the fox in the nose down position circa 1919. Phenominal guns, really gets a lot of compliments whenever I take it out.

It is great that Aldo Leopold's gun is still around. My brother in law married a girl from Wisconsin in the 1980's and the first time I met her family I was introduced to her dad who was probably in his late 70's and a retired conservation officer. He was an old Swede and had a reputation to not talk too much to anybody. After I shook his hand I asked him if he ever met Aldo Leopold. Apparently he worked and hunted with him and he talked to me for over an hour about him. Old Norb told me he used a Winchester model 12 so there is no Fox connection there. So I got to shake the hand of a man who shook Aldo Leopold's hand.

My brother in law had met his wife in college and they got married the week after graduation and moved to Idaho and he told me that he thought I talked more with his father in law than he ever had. I told him he needed to talk about the right things.

Amen, it's all about the "right things", Joe.

This is mine with the deeper engraving.

Rod, let us know when you release your article on Leopold.

Thanks,

Wayne

Going to college at Stevens Point in Wildlife Management I heard and read a lot about Leopold. But they never taught us about his guns!!! Look forward to the article on Leopold. I got to know several of Aldo Leoplod's students pretty well. All good folks and all hunters!

Rod,

Thanks very much for posting the wonderful photos, and background info. I got to do the tour of the the Leupold "cabin" and land a few years ago and it was great.

Where are you planning to publish the article? I am a Fox shotgun fan (shot a 1911 Philadelphia 12 for several years) and am very interested.

Don't get too excited about this article guys. This is a scholarly journal article, written for my day-job as a university professor. I hope to publish it in an academic journal called ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (if you were in the dentist office and there were only two magazines, one being ISLE, most of us would reach for the other one). It's probably a year away from completion, and then another year will be taken up in the submission and revision process. The wheels of academic journals grind very slowly.

When I retire in five years I intend to go back to writing for magazines that real people actually read (if magazines exist is five years); until then, my job requires writing that's a lot drier than I would like.

John--I spent some time at the Leopold shack and in his archives at the U of Wisconsin last fall. I agree, it is nicely preserved and well worth seeing.

Rod

Good morning--

I have a little more info on Leopold's Fox, courtesy of a little write-up about it in a newsletter put out by the Leopold Center where the gun is now on display.

It is a 20 gauge XE grade with 30" barrels and 2 3/4" chambers, choked Improved Cylinder and Full. It was ordered by Leopold in Colorado Springs at the Colorado Sporting Goods Company (a 300 mile train trip from where Leopold was then living in New Mexico, indicating just how badly he wanted this gun). Interestingly, the gun was special ordered without a safety.

Rod

Great info Rod.

Thanks for sharing.

20 Grade XEs are really quite rare. Interesting that he did not want a safety...would not think he was doing much live bird/target shooting out there but could easily be wrong.