Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Quality of lettering a gun as of today

Hello All,
I have thought of lettering a 99k that I have had for some time. Last time I lettered a 99 (2 years ago), the letter was for the wrong gun. When the problem was solved quickly, the letter offered little specifics about the peculiarities of this 1909 99CD. Do the present day letters offer any good information where someone works a little to see all the notes and such, or is it year, model, and plane Jane information?
Thanks Mike

What we lost when JTC retired was the personal touch he added to the letters to at least give the requester the feeling he was getting something. When it comes right down to it the only real information available it what is actually contained within the pages of the ledgers themselves. JTC also had first hand experience with the manufacturing process during his employment at the factory. Letters today somewhat use JTC's format and change little of his verbage.

Nobody right now is doing factory letters.

They have been shipped to they Cody museum, but it will be a while longer before Cody is sending letters out.

I wouldn't expect anything more than what's directly in the ledger. For a 99K that would be ship date, maybe model, maybe caliber, maybe who it was sold to.

Call me crazy, I don't now nor have ever seen much value in knowing which hardware store a new rifle was shipped to, etc

You never know what you will get. I lettered one because it had some special features. Turned out it was delivered to the Savage corporate secretary, and had four subsequent work orders, that made it possible to find out some things about a later owner, a mayor of Utica and New York State Senator. I have wondered if the rifle was given to the mayor as an incentive of some kind.

It a part of the history of the firearm ,,,,,Knowing what State it went to is just a little more intriguing info of where it wound up before you or who acquired it .....................
Good to see another Missouri fellow on here

Early letters can give more data. It's rare for a later letter to have that, but does happen.

There are authoritative guys right here on this forum who could write detailed descriptions critiquing individual guns for patrons.

I can see it now: 50 years hence, a letter from Rick, David, Gene, Rory, etc. carrying weight when Egbert Schlomo goes to sell his M1899B or M1903 shucker.

I understand that and agree with that to a point.... I bought an H&R Sportsman 22 at a gunshow a number of years ago. I thought it was pretty cool that it was shipped to the local small town hardware store where I grew up in the mid 1960's. (I know, its not a Savage!) But, I thought it was cool that I brought her home.....Not like shipped to Pat Garrett or Jack O'connor, or even Lee Harvey Oswald but still sort of cool.....

I requested a letter for a very low serial number (first year) Model 1920 about a year ago and several months later received a very generic form letter that was obviously not filled in with any specific data for my rifle. It appeared no one even tried to fill it in properly. It also looked as if it came off a printer from the 70's. A sample sentence from the letter...

"The records yield that this rifle was built in caliber and accepted from the factory to the warehouse in Utica, New York on . Shipment of the rifle was made on to not known."

Spacing, grammar and wording is exactly as it appears in the letter. I was very disappointed to receive it. At the very least, I expected it to be grammatically correct. I certainly understand if there was no record of my rifle. I was just very disappointed in what appeared to me to be a lousy attempt at filling in the form correctly.

YMMV

I took a chance and lettered an engraved 1950’s F chambered for the 243 Win. Got lucky as the factory records showed a small ‘eng’ indicating the gun was factory engraved by Ziggie Rentzke.
One never knows, but in this case it was certainly worth the price of admission.

I doubt if I ever send in for a letter again. But, the two rifles I have letters on, the letters helped. The first question asked when I posted pics of the 1912 H with the Malcolm on it was, "Who put it on there and when". The letter stated the rifle was sold to Malcolm, answered that question. When Randy lettered the 1919 250-3000 Rifle with non matching numbers on the butt, he lettered both numbers, it came back with all of the details for the receiver and forearm. The letter for the butt stock came back, "no rifle left the factory with that number". Which insinuates the butt went out on another rifle, mine. If John was still doing them I'd send for one on my K. It has JM engraved on the stock, and the way it's done, it looks like a brand. If it came back the rifle was sold to a big ranch, that would be cool and worth it. If it just comes back stating it was made in 1928, I already know that. Not worth the stamps to mail the letter.

I've talked to some who expected the letter to come back listing the characteristics that the owner found on the rifle...does not work that way. I've seen many log pages and it is not always easy to decode what is there. You will get only the info as listed in the log.

I will say that JTC was able to learn from this site, also. Now that the logs have been moved to Cody there is hope that we will be able to access the books that will answer/clarify questions that we still have.

Amen.

So does cody offer acces to the winchester records? These will simply mean dollars and cents for the museum pretty sure they are not going to publish them

Why don't they just take a close up photo of the entry and email you that. Let you read it for yourself. Easy peasy.

Don’t know if they still do it, but I requested and received photocopies of the actual ledger entries with several Winchester Factory Letters provided by Cody.
IMO the staff at Cody does a very good job.

Exactly what I said when it was anounced the records were going to cody, hard to decifer poconojack you said the same thing

My 1895 saddle ring carbine lettered as being sold in a hardware store near where the previous owner lived. I found that interesting.

I had a 99G that was made many years earlier before the 99G came out. Turned out a Savage employee had his 1899H 22 high power made into a 99G in 30-30. The factory did a spectacular job. The letter solved this mystery.