http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2015/11/the-company-presidents-rifle-fanciest-savage-ever/

Very Cool!

Mike

Yeah! But would it kill a dink? Like my tomato stake. GW :

Yup, just saw it myself. It's always nice when the 99 gets some recognition.

Says he was president in 1956, but the rifle is gold trigger post-mil crap...I would have returned it for a real 99

Arthur sold most of his shares of Savage Arms in 1905, that's why I like the 1895's so much, after 1905 they weren't true Savages in my book. In 1938 he took his own life. Such a tragic loss for someone who worked so hard to open his own firearms factory and then sell it ten years later. The concept was there and he followed through with it till it got big, then sold it off for a large profit, you see that a lot these days so he's no better than a CEO selling off his steel plant honestly. Can't hold it against him, he went on to design a lot of different patents and made them work as well but as far as Savage Arms went it stopped in 1905, any presidents afterwards are just a business, just my .02.

I am not sure Arthur Savage left the company with a lot of money, I think he may have let the other investors he brought in to start the company have more power than he had himself. A newspaper article from 1907 about Arthur Savage suing Savage Arms for back wages mentions that he was under contract with Savage Arms as a manager and that the board relieved him of his duties before the end of his contract with his replacement telling him in early 1905 'to remove his effects form the company office'. Savage Arms continued paying his wage for a time but not until the end of the contract - he sued them for these back wages and won. During this court case a local church that Arthur had been renting a house added an attachment to the suit to get rent that he had left town owing them.



Here are some other articles-

And Arthur was never President of Savage Arms/Savage Repeating Arms/Savage Arms Corp/etc.

nice bit of archival history there GeneB, Thanks for being the consummate Savage/Stevens archivist!

Back to that rifle, it just does not have the eye appeal to me that the very early Enoch Tue engraved guns do, I like the fine lower relief lines of his engraving over almost all of the work of later engravers. I also like the less exaggerated curves of the wood on very early guns. Even the Dodge rifle, which has to be considered in any discussion on the 'fanciest Savage ever' seemed way to much to me - Dodge rifles


(PS I do't know how to take Arthur Savage's skipping out on rent owed to a church, first time I ever heard of a church suing anyone for money, they usually are considered charitable institutions.)

I have a copy of a letter from Arthur on company stationery and he signed it as "Gen. Mgr.". It is dated Jul 5, 1899.

JeffG it says the rifle was presented in 1967 thus the gold trigger. It appears to have a lot of features used in later presentation/commemorative Savage rifles. Tom.

I agree that Enoch Tue's work is much, much better than anything done later. Though the Dodge rifle was done by Gough, I think.

That rifle is almost identical to Ron Coburn's rifle. Ron's serial number is slightly higher and the engraving on the bottom of the receiver doesn't have any inscription.
Both rifles use a much deeper version of the 99PE engraving with the animals gold-plated and the Indian head on the bottom of the receiver added. The PE only has scroll work on the bottom of the receiver.
Ron's rifle appears in my book and on the back cover. The front cover has a pic of a Enoch Tue "F" engraved rifle.
David

That thing's beggin' to be a .284. Lemme at it!

Pretty tall order since it's a rotary mag. A 7-08 maybe? Sort of a .284.

Would require a donor rifle.

I remember Joe Falcon as he was president when I first started at Savage. He was a tall slender well groomed gentleman who took over after Fred Hickey had passed away. I do not know who engraved the rifle, for certain it was done outside of the company. The wood however was carved by Mitzie Bielen who was our A.H. Fox gunsmith and was the only one who had the skills to do fancy work. The scrolls on the wood are identical in part to a reproduction Stevens Favorite that hangs in the company museum.

Gene, you had brought to light with me this court case regarding Arthur Savage a couple of years ago. I furnished you copies of the documents that led to his dismissal. Why don't you let the forum members in on that circumstance.
It is true that Arthur was not the founder of the company. The founders were a group of investors. Arthur was an employee and was employed as general manager, inventor, traveling man and inspector and was paid $30.00 per week in all capacities. He also received royalties for the 1895 and 1899 under contract on a diminishing , sliding scale with the exclusive right to use his name in the production of arms and ammunition. JTC

Great info! Thanks, JTC. The checkering on that rifle is wonderful, I like that style.

Sad to hear Arthur making a $30 salary, though that was probably 3x the average salary of a working man in 1900.

John, I have shared some of that information, I have been going to contact you to ask if you wished any restrictions on it's use before doing much more with it.

The information from John is on the dealings between Arthur Savage & son and Stevens Arms about the production of a gun design. I did not interpret the information as the reason for his firing, but as the reason Savage Arms felt justified to stop paying him even though his contract had not officially ended. The newspaper article from 1907 says that after Arthur W. Savage left "the employ of the defendant, he invented another gun, or improvement". This gun design appears to have been what became the Stevens Gallery 80. That design copies the bolt locking and lifter design of the Browning designed Winchester Model 1890 almost exactly even though from outward appearance one would not think they would have any similarities at all (and even though the mention in court used the term "improvement" there are just to many issue with it to say it improved on anything). The major patents on the 1890 were to expire in 1907 and that is the year the Gallery 80 was introduced.

John has copies the contracts between the Savage's and Stevens Arms concerning the Gallery 80. The original contract was written with Arthur W. Savage named, it was then rewritten with the same date in the name of his son, Arthur J. Savage. That first contract in Arthur J. Savage's name was signed by Arthur W. Savage, all later correspondence was signed by Arthur J. Savage (in very much better hand writing). My thoughts are that this was all done to avoid any legal issues with Savage Arms due to any agreements Arthur W. had made with them. The patents for the Gallery 80 are also all in A. J. Savage's name.

The Gallery 80 had some issue and was a failure, so Savage Arms might actually have benefited from Stevens Arms investing in it, instead of something that would have been more competitive, than if they had gotten the rights to it. Some of the last correspondence between Arthur J. Savage and Stevens Arms was about the decision to discontinue the Gallery and what was to be done with an inventory of several hundred unsold rifles, Stevens Arms also had the No 70 Visible Loader by then.

About 1912 there were a couple other gun designs that were patented in Arthur J and Basil Savage's names that were sold to Sears, Roebuck & Company and manufactured by the Sears owned Meriden Arms company. Again I think likely these were actually designed by Arthur W. Savage. A 1914 Sears, Roebuck & Company catalog gives design credits to A. J. and Basil but the design for the Meriden Model 15 pump 22 was later acquired by Mossberg and they had an ad for the rifles giving credit for the design to Arthur W. Savage. The patents for the Meriden Model 15 expired in 1929 and the design was copied by Savage to make the Model 29. The Model 29 is one of the few Savage Arms guns to not have any patents stamped on it, Savage Arms did not use any patents of their own for it.

Another point of interest on what Gene said regarding Mossberg, is that Oscar Mossberg worked for J. Stevens Arms before starting his own firm and moving to Connecticut. JTC

And obviously we all know that Savage Arms ended up buying Stevens in 1920.

The board of directors removed Arthur from his position no later than January 25th, 1905 when Savage had published in multiple periodicals a notice that Arthur W. Savage was no longer in the position of managing director and was not authorized to make any transactions on their behalf. If he sold a design to Stevens in 1906 or 1907 that was probably not the reason for being removed from his position.

What's the date on the first contract with Stevens? or is there one?


Company management in January, 1905 was:
President: Benjamin Adriance
VP: Walter Jerome Green
Secretary/Treasurer: J. DePeyster Lynch

I can't find a reference to any of these except Walter J. Green, who in 1902 was a director and had been there since they incorporated in 1897 (1894 probably). So change in management/ownership sometime from 1902 to 1904?

The date for which Arthur W. first signed and re-made for Arthur J. to sign the agreement with Stevens is dated Sept. 9, 1905. No telling how much negotiation preceded their signing or how long before that it took him to design the rifle. JTC

Wouldn't have guessed Arthur was involved with such a deal if he'd departed long before that time.

The story about Lame Deer is also on the Savage Arms official site, it's been there for years - savagearms.com/history/

Since by 1919 Arthur Savage had been in California for several years involved in manufacturing tires, Lame Deer would have had to take quite a trip to see him & probably would only have been able to get a deal on some tires & tubes to replace the ones he wore out getting there if he drove.

Hmm. So if Arthur was involved with the 1903 and 1904 22's, and involved with the pistols which were patented in 1905(?), sounds like the problems probably arose in late 1904 - or culminated in 1904.

Weren't the Perris Specials in summer or fall of 1904? Not saying there is any connection, just trying to think of significant happenings around that time. 1905 was the intro of the 1899H, takedown didn't show up until 1906.

Great info Gene B & JTC!!!!! Thanks for more great FACTS.
tjw

Some time in the future look for the Lame Deer legend to be corrected. The current president of Savage is wanting to get factual information regarding the company's history and dates to correct a number of things like this. This is one thing he has already looked in to. JTC

Here is a list of the last patents of Arthur W. Savage that were assigned to Savage Arms, note the filing date because all were granted after he left the company (possibly the reason for a lot of confusion as to when he actually left).

789761 May 16, 1905 (filed Nov 25, 1904) for the No 21 rear sight

806007 Nov 28, 1905 (filed Apr 8, 1904) used for the 1904/1905/1911 (the 1911 also had other designers patents)

839517 Dec 25, 1906 (filed May 20, 1901) used for the 1903, 1909, 1912, 1914 and 25 (the last 3 also used patents by other designers)

885868 Apr 28, 1908 (filed Nov 25, 1904) for improvements in the magazine for the 1903

The take down feature was 865357 Sept 10, 1907 (filed May 3, 1904) by Frank C. Chadwick who had many patents assigned to Savage Arms

Charles A. Nelson and Charles W. Lang are other names that show up often on patents assigned to Savage Arms starting about 1914.

I find no information that Arthur Savage had much to do with the pistols. The pistol patents (that apply to the models they actually made) are in the following names - Elbert H. Searle (the original designer), Charles A. Nelson (several for improvements) and Charles W. Lang ( 1 for improvements to the safety).

If you search the internet you will be able to find articles about Arthur Savage and Savage Arms that give him credit for developing the Savage pistol and also saying 'he ran his company until his death in 1938'. You may also find some old post of my own that have some incorrect information that at the time I thought correct, I now try to always list my source so one can judge for themselves if the data, or my interpretation of it, makes any sense.

Thanks, Gene. So patent wise Arthur had nothing to do with the pistols, but he was managing director while they were being developed. Probably safe to say he had significant input, he just shouldn't get credit for the design.


That November 25, 1904 patent filing for the magazine improvement likely narrows it down. Might have been a lot of problems by then, but it's probable that his change to contract employee happened at the very end of 1904 or early January 1905.

Even better, from the lips of Mr. Coburn, the chief had been using the Savage 99 in .300 Savage for a number of years. He doesn't say the year but it must have been after 1919 if the .300 wasn't introduced until 1920. He does say the Chief approached Savage Arms, does not identify Arthur. Also sounds to me like he said Lame Bear, not Deer, then again he's the CEO, not the historian. The Accurate Shooter site presents the article to show a pretty gun, not as an historical reference on details either.

http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2010/10/5/history-of-savage-arms-and-the-savage-110/

With regard to Calhoun,s thought and statement that Arthur W. changed to being a contract employee in 1904 is not correct. The document that lists his duties and salary is dated October 11, 1897. JTC

Oops, I was misunderstanding something. I thought Savage put Arthur under contract as a consultant once they removed him from the general manager position. My bad.. his contract was as an executive (general manager) for 3 years including 1903-1905 at $4,000 per year. That's in the newspaper article, and the lawsuit by Arthur was to get Savage to pay the last 2 months of his salary.

So he started out making $30/wk in 1897, 1903-1905 he was making $77/wk. Not too bad.

Hard to read those old scans of newspaper articles.



GeneB, as to the church - I note that the church gave notice to both Arthur and to Savage Arms. I wonder if it wasn't part of Arthur's 3 yr contract in 1903 that Savage Arms would also pay his housing and that whole thing got confused in 1905 with him leaving the state and Savage saying they'd fired him in January/etc? Just a guess, but I can't think of any other reason for the church to serve the company. Regardless, Arthur ended up paying for it since it looks like it was taken out of his money from the lawsuit.

My interpretation was that the church added an attachment to any award Arthur Savage would have got, my thoughts were that if he didn't win they wouldn't get anything either. Those scans are hard to read, I will try to look at them again. I do recall that there was mention of Savage Arms saying Arthur left town owing a lot of debts, which he denied.

There is also something to consider when interpreting patent dates, this is based on my layman's understanding of the patent laws and probably would not hold up in court... but from my understanding only the actual designer can legally get a patent and that they have one year to file after the design has been made public, if not, then it can no longer be patented by anyone and becomes free to copy. Patents filed in Nov of 1904 may have been ready to file as far back as Nov of 1903, so they cannot be used to definitely date when the work was completed. I would think a company, knowing this, might set on patents for a time before filing to maximize the length of protection. This again is my understanding - patents would expire 17 years after the issue date or 20 years after the application date, which ever came first, by waiting to file, almost a year could be added to them being in effect.

As a side note to management at Savage, Lynch, as corporate secretary was also president of the Genesee Underwear Company. He was instrumental in the sale if Savage to Seabury, and made out quite well, while things were not quite so rosy for the rest of the stockholders.

The 1899 .250/3000 that I have had at three of the fests was delivered to Lynch, and later was owned by Fred J Rath, who was mayor of Utica, and later NY State senator.