Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Reading the ledgers

So several times in the last 6 weeks I've talked with some smart folks about unusual 22" barreled 1899's, and whether they were a "Short Rifle" or if they were special order 1899's with short barrels.

Obviously, it'd seem that you would go to the ledgers to find out. Right?

But I started thinking about that... not sure that even works.

Starting off with a bit of a ledger primer for those who haven't seen many 1899 ledgers.... it'll be long. Sorry.

First, the 1899 ledgers never recorded model letters for standard 1899 models, Murray coined the model letters in the 70's, they never existed from 1899 to 1920. Savage recorded the characteristics unless it was a named model like "Leader", "Monarch", "Rival", etc. The ledgers have several columns : serial number, notes, barrel shape, caliber.


So an 1899A in 303 is recorded in the ledger as:

1) Notes : <blank>
Barrel : R
Caliber : 303

That's it. Just an R in one column, and the caliber in another. An 1899B would have an O instead of an R, an 1899C would have a H/O. Any barrel length not noted for a 303/30-30/25-35/32-40/38-55 is the default 26".


An 1899A with 28" barrel is recorded as:

2) Notes : 28"
Barrel : R
Caliber : 303


Now, how is a standard 1899A Short Rifle recorded?

3) Notes: 22" SGBP
Barrel : R
Caliber :303

SGBP meaning shotgun buttplate, which is the term they used in the catalogs for it.


What if you ordered an 1899A SR with crescent buttplate? It would be..

4) Notes: 22"
Barrel : R
Caliber : 303

No note means a crescent buttplate - except.. at least early on they'd sometimes put the word "Rifle" in for a crescent buttplate if it was non-standard. But I doubt they were consistent on that.


What if you ordered a standard 1899A but with 22" barrel? It'd be recorded as:

5) Notes : 22"
Barrel : R
Caliber : 303


What if you ordered an 1899A Short Rifle with an octagon barrel? Not catalogued.. but would Savage do it? Sure, why not? It would be:

6) Notes : 22" SGBP
Barrel : O
Caliber : 303


What if you ordered an 1899B with a 22" barrel and shotgun buttplate? Savage would absolutely fulfill this order. It would be:

7) Notes : 22" SGBP
Barrel : O
Caliber : 303

Now if you look back... numbers 4 and 5 are identical, and numbers 6 and 7 are identical. So based off of the ledger entry, can you positively tell if an entry was a custom ordered 1899[ABC] with 22" barrel, or a custom ordered Short Rifle?

I don't think you can tell. And.. you end up with the same exact rifle either way. So I doubt that Savage Arms cared how you ordered it, just so long as they could make it without undue effort and that you could pay for it.

Here's a ledger page with some SR's and 1899A's from:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...etters-poll-added-on-page-2#Post15452652

And for those of you who bought my book, you'll see that most every named grade has a disclaimer on it that it can be tough to tell if an 1899 was ordered as a base 1899 with options, or as the named grade with those same options. Both visually, and probably even by the ledger.

Here's an example : If you look up a ledger entry for an 1899C A2 Special, you might see any of the following:

1) Notes : A2 Special
Barrel : H/O
Caliber : 303


2) Notes : Cked A2 Engr A2
Barrel : H/O
Caliber : 303


3) Notes : <blank>
Barrel : H/O
Caliber : 303

4) Notes : 540-1
Barrel : H/O
Caliber : 303


#1 - YAY!! Hit the jackpot.
#2 - Well.. it's the same thing as an A2 Special, just recorded with characteristics rather than name.
#3 - Crud. Another special gun with blank notes? Yeah, happens too frequently that stuff isn't recorded. Maybe the ledger guy was in a hurry. Who knows?
#4 - The 540-1 indicates a work order.. which a work order might appear for any customization. Different sights, engraving, checkering, barrel length, buttplate, etc.. it's a catch-all. So was the work order for an A2 Specal? Or for A2 checkering and A2 engraving? Or just for the triple bead front sight and they didn't bother to record anything about the engraving/checkering? Who knows, the work order details are long gone.

#4 is my A2 Special by the way... absolutely no doubt the work is factory. They just didn't fill in the ledger entry. Sigh.

But the gun ends up being the same gun for all 4 ledger entries.

Well, that clears things up!

Hunh?

Yup, clear as mud !!!

Short version: the 1899 ledgers record characteristics, not model names. So in some special order cases you can’t tell which specific model it was ordered as because they’d have the same characteristics.

Morning Don.

AHA! Mornin' y'all!

So: if a woodchuck could chuck. How much...?

In many ways it was nice when Callahan was interpreting the ledger entries for us.

“By the description, your rifle is…”

That won’t happen any more. From now on we’ll see the characteristics, and will have to interpret our letters or letters of folks who drop by to figure out models.

"Who's on first?"

+1

In researching my new book I discovered that most of the engraved and special order 1899's made between 1904 and 1917 didn't fit the catalog named grade. I point out the differences in the text. These are things like checkering and engraving not conforming to the named grade.

I ran into that as well. Which is maybe to be expected.. the named grades were just a set of options put together for ease of ordering. Usually the costs for them was just the cost of the base model plus the options, so there was no discount. And since you could still custom order, people decided they'd rather order the specific features they wanted rather than a predetermined group of options.

Had a hard time finding some of the named grades to include as pictures in my book.

But on the same note.. theoretically you could order a named grade with upgraded/downgraded features. So you could order a Leader Grade - but with C checkering rather than B checkering. How would they have entered that into the ledger? As a Leader, or as all the options?

So, it would seem that without Callahan's interpretation and the lack of definitive records, it would open the door for unscrupulous entrepreneurs to take an 1899C for example, spend a couple grand on some correct engraving, and peddle it for a tidy profit to unsuspecting well heeled Savage collectors (I almost said "nuts") who wouldn't/couldn't care to perform due diligence. Or has it already been done?

With a number of engraved/fancy guns with empty ledger entries, this is possible. Even if Callahan was interpreting, this would be possible. And has it happened? Good question. You'd have to find an engraver that could fake Tue's style, and then find a gun shop that could fake the original bluing/finish.

That sort of thing is also true for 99's made after November, 1937. Fake a 99K, build a 99T in 22HP, etc... could do those and nobody could use the ledger to show it was a fake. Has anybody? Lot of work and expense, could be done.

It is a mess! "With Savage never Say Never."

lol