1) Utica's Semi-Weekly Herald reports on October 12th, 1897 that Marlin had contracted with Savage for 5,000 rifles, and that Savage has but 1,200 on hand and they are selling at 300 a month. Also says the Savage company had received offers from other gun companies to buy the Savage patents, but did not like giving up a good thing.
2) Utica's New York Observer newspaper on November 17th, 1897 reporting on a meeting of Savage Repeating Arms and the Utica Chamber of Commerce, reports that the Savage company had contracted with Marlin for 5,000 rifles and "these guns have all been made, and almost all sold".
3) NY Sunday Journal in 1900 or 1901 (no firm date on the page), reports that Savage contracted for 10,000 rifles and that Marlin refused to renew the contract.
Now, legal contracts can always have options for extensions. So it's fully possible that Marlin contracted for 5,000 rifles with an option to do another 5,000 if both parties were willing - and Marlin wasn't willing. But since we know that Marlin produced 5,000 rifles, it seems that 5,000 was the number that Marlin had to produce.
Anybody find or know of other early references to either the 5,000 or 10,000 numbers?
