Everything about it points to it being a 1899 !!!! serial number,barrel address, wood, i think they are a bit off with this discription. The other 1895 also has a cased reciever ,suprised that wasn't mentioned they only made around 100 cased colored 1895's. Don
James Julia had it as an 1899... but made with some 1895 parts?
RIA lost most of the older experienced people they had doing descriptions and they also have almost to many guns than they can deal with (or actually do have to many). I go to the viewing all the time and many of their 'experts' now are quite young. I just bought three lots (15 guns total) from their on-line only auction at a fraction of what they would have brought if cataloged better in smaller lots. The on-line only auctions have a lot of junk, I knew the collector who's estate these were from, so I could sort the good from the bad. I watched some of the other lots sell and the buyers of those will not be very happy when they actually see them, in one lot all the guns were cold blued over pitting.
The family would have done far better putting these in a smaller local auction house, most now list on-line and they would do them individually, or in much smaller lots. I talked to a friend of the family this weekend and they said that many of his guns, mostly 22 rifles, had boxes and that RIA didn't take them so the family threw them away.
RIA also buys some of the lots themselves if they sell low, ... so a poor description could be changed when they go to sell them again..... and if they buy the lot they can subtract the 15%~20% commission instead of add the buyers premium.
