Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Cody Number Search

For someone not schooled in Savage Levers the Cody letter/search might leave many questions unanswered.

Absolutely agree there.


Does Winchester ledgers have the same reputation as Savage ledgers for being... not totally complete?

Yes, but i believe there more legible then the cluttered savage ones.

1) The comment ""obviously not up to snuff" was made by you. Not me.
2) I don't need/want you to reverse engineer anything. I would like context associated with a letter. Like Roe & JTC did. And Cody can do that with some schooling.
3) If Cody is up to snuff, then why did they contact David and ask for his input?

The point of the message is that the ledgers are for 1895, 1899, 99, pistols, .22's, bolts, shotguns and probably more.
Possessing the ledgers does not make Cody experts. Understanding them does. And this will take time and effort from Cody, David and others.

I think we agree that education/schooling of Cody is in order.
Don't care what the definition of snuff is.

Roe didn't always do "context", many of his letters were before Murray coined the 1899 model names and so his letters often just report what's in the ledger. I do think he'd fill in the "303 Savage" and "26 inch barrel" in the letter when it was empty in the ledger, but that was usually all.

Here's a Roe Clark letter for a very similar rifle. The only additional context he put in that probably wasn't in the ledger that I can see is that it was in 303 Savage.

I'll be meeting with Jessi the historian and Danny the curator.
People aren't born with info already in their heads. They need to learn from others who have more knowledge on the subject and to study the subject if possible. When I was in school back in the dark ages we had teachers or professors who gave us the book learning and we went on field trips to see what they were teaching us.
The last time I was at the museum they didn't have much of a variety of Savages. If they could visit Doug Foglio or Dave Trauth and spend days with their rifles and the ledgers side by side they could become experts. They were studying the Collector's Guide so that was a step in the right direction but they need more input than the collector's guide gives on the subject. If my new book was out they would have more facts to help them.
I'll be using my inventory list and the info I've gathered researching my new book to help explain the ledgers to them. I'll also tell them they are welcome to come here to my house to study my collection.

It's always good to teach new people about Savage's, I'm sure they'll enjoy it.

But they told me last fall, they told me this spring - they aren't going to do anything on searches and letters except tell people what's in the ledger. That's all they do on any ledger entry from any manufacturer. So it will be interesting to see if you can make any headway on telling them to start filling in stuff that's not recorded.