Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Cody letters.. ( Poll added on page 2)

Indeed one of a very few that truly makes my heart sing.


But I gotta ask after finally opening and reading this thread--- who's on first base?! I don't know.

(Could be my normally addled brain is overly addled, courtesy of hospital opiates. 😁 )

Opiates are our friend.

Neat seeing an original page of the ledger. Interesting how things were tracked 100 years ago.

Looking at the first column if “P22SGB” is 22” ShotGun Buttplate might a lone “P” in that column be for “Pad” such as the thin and thick black ones?

Just a guess. Doesn’t explain the three blanks in this column nor the “P” in front of 22SGB.

The entries seem hurried and there looks to be some edits by different hands. Might be the blanks were just neglected.

Another thought, may be the “P” indicates “packed” and the additional “22SGB” is added to denote a special feature having no other column to include this option. The 3 blanks might then be explained if a customer or employee obtained the rifle at the plant and packing wasn’t necessary.

Another curious observation, the location of the “P” in the box varies. Some are left, middle and right. Done by chance or did placement have meaning?

I may just take a shot on my thing-a-ma-bob barrel band Model H in 250-3000....finally. No clue as to the origin of it. Whoever did it sure knew what they were doing. I had posted pictures of it long ago but who knows what happened to them by now.

We have found that the "P" was also in some of the pre-WWI pages and I think (like you) that it might indicate "packed", also

The 22'SGB was the standard entry for the Short barreled rifle with a shot gun butt plate. Not all the early ones had the shot gun plate (SGB). Some used the standard rifle plate.

The double blank just mean that that serial number never made it to the ware house...scrapped or vanished...and so it was not shipped.[b][/b]

So if a copy of the ledger page comes with the letter it becomes much more interesting.

POLE

Okay Rick (Southern_WI_Savage) what is the correct answer? I say the third one.

Things to look for:

Rear sight location
Cross bolt in rear of forearm
Receiver ring marking...Model 1899 Savage or blank

2215xx

"Packed" does make sense.. Except "The Haynes & Chalmers Co." listing in this ledger apparently was a company in Bangor, ME and it doesn't have a P recorded in the ledger. It's a long ways from Utica to Bangor. Two other entries without "P"'s are for Piper & Taft Inc, which appears to have been a Seattle business.

Still thinking that "Proofing" shouldn't be ruled out just because they weren't stamping the barrel in a way we recognize. Could they have been doing random test firing of barrels? Just a possibility.

Course... "P" could just mean it was Paid for up front.

In regards to possible "proof"ing - I pulled out my 1920 1899A Short Rifle with takedown (SN 228,7xx, no SAVAGE 1899 MODEL receiver stamp), and it has:
1) an S on the forearm after the serial number
2) a small X on the buttstock under serial number
3) and a lever boss stamp of L.
No "P" or SP stamps to be seen anywhere obvious, and the barrel (Murray's Style 4 barrel address except top/bottom lines are same length) has nothing but the OFF and arrows. But maybe they didn't proof it, so a sample of one doesn't mean much.

It also has what appears to be a New York drivers license number or similar scratched onto the bottom of the buttplate. Have to remember to try to look that up.

Not being that familiar with 1899's I dated Rick's rifle to 1919 at the earliest based on the rear sight elevator, assuming it was the original. I also had to assume when Rick said it was 100 years old that it actually was, so it couldn't be newer than 1920. The elevator with the fine adjusting screw was part of patent US1464615 filed for Jan 20, 1920 for a sight set - rear sight, elevator and a front sight. The rear sight mark includes "PAT-PEND." which can be used before a patent is actually filed for (or even after). Since a patent can only be filed for within a year of the design becoming public the very earliest the elevator could have been used would have been Jan 30, 1919, if earlier than that it could never be patented. This sight & elevator are first shown in catalog #61 from about 1920, they are not in #60 but it was from several years earlier, about 1916.

If the rear sight is of folded sheet metal construction for the dovetail, like all the examples I've seen, it would probably be closer to mid-1920. I've only seen that sight stamped with "PAT-PEND." included; just Savage arms info and nothing about patents; or nothing stamped at all; never with 'patent applied for' or a patent date. That rear sight construction was covered by a Stevens patent which Savage would have gotten when they acquired Stevens sometime in 1920.Other Savage sights constructed with sheet metal parts that were made through this period have a different construction early and then used the folded design later with the assumption being the changes took place in 1920

uspto.gov/01464615
uspto.gov/00847953

The rifle shipped from Savage Arms Utica, NY to Pritzlaff Hardware in Milwaukee, WI. on March 31, 1920.

Incredible is the history of these guns, totally a step back to when a gun was really sold and used as a gun.

Brief breakdown of this ledger page. With only 1 shipped in 1921, I think this might show how bad that 1 year depression was?

* There are 40 entries that are fully legible, 1 partial. All were accepted in 1920.
* All entries have accepted from factory dates ranging from July 2, 1920 to Oct. 6, 1920 (most in July/Aug, only 1 later)
*** This is actually a very tight date range for accepted dates on a ledger page based on others seen

* 31 were shipped in 1920 from late July to October.
* 1 was shipped in 1921 in September.
* 8 were shipped in 1922 from Jan to Nov.

* 15 were in 30/30
* 26 were in 303
* None in 22HP or 250-3000

* 23 were 1899A 26" rifles
* 18 were 1899A SR 22" rifles
* No 1899H or 250-3000 rifles

* None were rebarreled to 300 Savage for 1921/1922 sale

* One has a job # from 1922 for a gun shipped in 1920, probably indicating a repair or maybe factory sight replacement
* One has a second ship date after the rifle was returned

* Anything shipped after Jan, 1922 (6 from May-Nov) has another accepted from factory date stamped over the original
* 34 of the 41 entries that can be seen have a P in the first column in 3 distinct positions

This has been an informative and interesting thread. Enjoyed all of the '99' Detective Squad's informative posts. Almost like having another chapter of David Royals book. See that the original gun posted from GI, the 1899/99A is still unsold. Interesting post ref the Savage shipment page. Odd some of the shipping dates are written in, others stamped. Guess how Savage kept their records back then was "normal" for the day, be pretty sloppy/unprofessional for any manufacturer today or not to many years ago. Be interesting to see more of these style posts.

When lettering a gun with Cody one can also request a photocopy of the specific gun’s entry in the ledger. In the past there was no additional charge for this service.

Even single lines would help show what's recorded in the ledger for different years.

There’s usually at least one other gun/line above and below the specific ledger entry shown on the photocopy.

Maybe a revision to my first book can happen after I finish the engraving book. The publisher wanted a revision when they did the second printing to include more engraving and they wanted me to do it in a month. One month would have been impossible obviously. The engraving book is shaping up to be much larger than the first book.