One of the guns I think was possibly the most significant was lot 150, the Tue engraved 1895. I was with John when he bought this from Bailey Brower, the negotiations were not all the friendly and were getting awkward so I left, when I got back it was John's gun. The gun is pictured in Bailey Brower's book on Savage Pistols on page 4. The owner pervious to Bailey was the one who had it 'restored' by Turnbull, he usually had the tables to Johns right at the shows. His story on it was that it had been a left over barreled receiver that the company gave to Enoch Tue when he was looking for employment to do an example of his work. He also said it had been owned previously by Roe Clark. He, or his father, decided to get it made into a complete rifle. He also mentioned that Turnbull may have touched up the engraving a little
. I thought some of the finest lines in the engraving seemed to fade out where they should have continued and the edges were not as sharp as they should be. The Callahan letter states that the entry line for this one is blank which fits with it being a left over barreled receiver.
I find it hard to use the term 'restored' for this one because it was supposedly just a barreled receiver when sent to Turnbull and it was not returned to an original configuration since that was not known, they used 1899 style wood. I see it is described as "Stocks are checkered highly figured walnut with special order checker pattern" - special order from Turnbull. When I heard the story I thought it a real shame it was not kept as it was to show the earliest know Tue work for Savage just as he left it.
I had a few on my list but only got one, and I don't think it was a bargain. It was more for sentimental reasons, I used to sit for hours with John when he was a regular table holder at OGCA and am familiar with some of those guns, I remember when he bought several of them and a couple spent time in my basement when I worked on them for him - I posted pictures of a couple of the projects a few years ago, one was lot 73, the 32-40 with a Malcolm side mount, when he got the gun it did not have a scope and I found one and mounted it for him, it was included in a post along with 3 of my rifles with Malcolm scopes. I was at John's table when he bought two project 1920's, one was a 20/26 that was just a couple bags of parts, that is the 1920/26 that I posted a thread about putting together, that one was not in this auction group. The first 1899 I got was also the first John bought that started his Savage collecting, it's really rough, he gave it to me after helping him with some projects so I would have an example to use for future projects and not have to borrow one anymore.
