Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors OT my local gunshop 75 years ago !

Here are a few pictures of the local gunshop 75 years ago. Shiff the gunman about 15 miles north in North Woodstock, had his shop there from 1920-1952 when he died. He was very famous and known worldwide,and hated democrat rule,namely Roosevelt and his new deal ,and J.edgar Hoover and his Gestapo. He used to have a franklin dime on the floor and as you came thru his door ,you were required to stamp on that dime !!! heres a few pictures in his shop.

Love it!

Kinda looks like someplace we've seen before.......

Complete with beard.

I think he had all the rifles in another part of his shop! not many in these pictures my father used to ride his bicycle up there to buy 22 H.P. savage ammo !

I always said I was born out of time. There's further proof.

Loggah, are there any small gun shops around that area any more?

An old wheel gun up behind his left ear in the top picture.

Anybody know what that is?

Colt?

+1

That wheel gun may be a Roper, especially seeing we seem to be looking at shotguns.

Awesome!!!! Thanks for the post..

Makes you wonder how many of your 99s spent time in shops like these.

Schiff, had a large colt collection,it could be a colt or roper revolving rifle,shotgun. I have a 1926 flyer he put out and was listing 99's and 1920 models. I have some pictures of savage pistols he had ,some in 45 colt. the collection of old stuff he had was amazing ,and quite a few sharps rifles. There are no gunshops real close to me anymore,25 miles plus away most good ones are 50 miles away. Don

I though so to at first, but the magazine appears to be fluted, possibly a cylinder, the Roper's were a round housing that was part of the receiver... for the rotary magazine (I wonder if Arthur ever saw one of these). 'Forgotten Weapons' has a video on how the Roper works - not your normal gun, fires from an open bolt -
Roper action open & ready to fire form open bol-
/www.americanarmsandantiques.com
youtube.com/Roper Video

I think Roper action was probably developed from the Marston breech loading single shot percussion rifle. Rope also made a few rifles, the first to use a rotary magazine almost 30 years before Savage????

Boy oh boy! What I wouldn't give to walk in there this morning, look around, and try to strike up a conversation with that old fella. I bet he'd have some good stories to tell.

Sylvester Roper also built 2 steam motorcycles, he actually died of a heart attack, when he was riding one on a board track. A friend of mine owns one of them,nothing like having a small hot steam boiler between your legs.

There are a few, but hardly any recoil pads.

Thanks for posting. Definitely cool pics.

thanks for sharing, might have been a few tall tales told in there

Mr. Shiff looks like he did what he enjoyed and didn't give a corn sheit what anyone else thought.
Reminds me of LBK.

Also reminds me of a fellow Nort' of here known as Woodtick Dick.

And finally, I've been known to wear a squirrel pin and gators but I take 'em off at the end of the day.

Don;

Were all of those guns for sale or were those guns just for looking at?

Appears he may have bought way more than he sold.

Not an unheard of practice, just curious.

How daMN MANY shotguns does a store need? Musta been a helluva lotta small game to hunt back then iz all I can say.