Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors engraved 1895

it came yesterday. It's well used but it is an engraved 1895. It was originally bought by Winfield Scott Stratton of Colorado Springs, Co. He discovered gold near Colorado Springs in the 1890's and used his wealth to build several public buildings in CS and help needy people. He also bought fancy guns for his friends. This rifle serial number 4424 and also 4421 were shipped to him on 2-18-1997. Dave Trauth has 4421. See the ledger page.

The ledger page also says that 4424 was engraved (eng), case hardened receiver (C.H.) and checkered (ckd). 4421 has the same features plus an extra long stock.
The documentation that came with the rifle also has a letter from Roe Clark stating that he found nine engraved 1895's in the ledgers. He also states there may have been more.

A historian letter from JTC was also enclosed with the rifle.

overall pic

engraving on the receiver





The buttstock appears to have been changed, but possibly at the factory. I will add some observations on this subject later.

Very cool! I think we've got information on 3 engraved 1895's that aren't recorded in the ledgers, so there's definitely a few more than 9. Probably not many.

4412/4413 are interesting entries, being totally empty. And 4415 says "Action"? Hmm.. very unusual.

Thanks for sharing!

WoW,Sir! Very Neat David, even engraved on the barrel! Was Enoch Tue the engraver, (I'm assuming this is a JM mfg rifle?)? How long have You been chasing this one?

Out Standing!! Great find. I'm certain you will enjoy it.

Congrats David!

Stratton was an interesting fellow.
He was both lucky and a good guy.
Took care of the needy and his friends.
Still haven't figured out who the owner of this rifle was. "F.C.T."

Stratton

Stratton II

The information within this Roe letter is immensely valuable.
Matted 1895's? Case Hardened? Silver plated? Gold plated?
At least we know what we're looking for...

It is believed with some certainty that Conrad F. Ulrich was the engraver. He was Marlin's chief engraver at that time.

Congrats David!! Very nice.

Ran into a case hardened 1895 for sale in Tulsa a few years back.. problem was the gun was a wreck. It had a tang sight on, and when you removed that the original case colors were underneath in all their glory.. but the gun was just too messed up. Made me cry.

I knew John Goulet, he lived about 15 miles from me! He on the Roe Clark letter, he was from either Maine or New Hampshire it's been good 12 years since I seen or talked to John he was 88 then before I moved North here he said all his good stuff was had been sold I bought some Savage boxes of ammo from him and 303 takedown at one time but all everything he had was just kind of plain Jane at that point he was selling it all because he was getting up there in years is he put it that's a nice guy big b********** but I know about a year before I lost contract with him he killed a nice eight point somewhere near his house there out deer hunting . He said that he collected Savages when everyone else collected Winchesters and Marlins, small world I guess.

It has both the M and JM in a circle on the barrel. I'll take some comparison photos of this rifle's stock and two others with similar checkering and post them later. The butt stock has two serial #'s.
Like Rick said we think Conrad Ulrich engraved the 1895 Savages.

That ain't no good. It has a hole in the bolt. I will take it off your hands and store it safely.

Beautiful rifles. You are a fortunate man.

Yes it is, I forgot to coment on the fine rifle! You have a story on how you found it?

David, you may know this, but others on the forum probably do not.

Model 1895 #4424 was Lot #1117 in the March 2013 Julia auction. Model 1895 #4309 was Lot #1137. According to the catalog #4309 was engraved by Tue, and the photo in the catalog certainly looks like 1899 Grade A engraving.

Prior to the auction it was somehow discovered that the wood on these two rifles had been switched. Rather than sell them separately, Julia made the decision to sell them together as Lot #1117 so the buyer could make the decision - leave them as is, or swap the wood back to the original rifles. The two rifles sold for $12,650.

Did you buy #4424 from the person who bought it at Julia's in 2013, or have there been other owners in between? Do you know where #4309 is? It seems as though you might be able to trace ownership of these two rifles back to the person who purchased them in 2013 to find out what happened with the wood.

You also mentioned #4421. That was Lot #1136 in the October 2012 auction. It sold for $17,250.

Do I read the entry for #4416 as sent to Browning Bro?

Wow!!!

I am pretty sure Josh bought 4424 at the Julia auction. The JTC letter is addressed to him and dated April 2013. I was there but only had enough money for the 32-40 SRC, the 25-35 1899H and a really nice 250-3000 type 2.
Here is a pic of 6247, 4424 and 24.411. 6247 has high grade wood and checkering. It is also matching numbers. The checkering on 4424 is very similar except that it doesn't have the line around the cheek pad. The serial # is stamped on the forearm, barrel and buttplate. 24.411 has the early type B checkering which we call fleur de lis. The checkering on 4424 is much closer to the other 1895, 6247.

Here is a closeup of 4424's checkering.

This shows the serial #'s stamped on the buttstock. One is unreadable, one is 13.331 and the other is 4424 stamped over what looks like 4303.

Browning Brothers did get some Savages which they resold in their store. They stamped Browning Brothers on the barrels.

It looks like the top one with the Norwegian wood has the ultra rare #17 tang sight.

it does, someone on here put me onto the sight. It had come with a later tang sight.

Interestingly #4309 is not on the Roe Clark list of 9 above.

I did find an old listing for 4309 that said something like this rifle was ordered/began life as a military musket, but the order somehow was changed.
But it did not have a pic of this rifle or the engraving.

Tue was still in Buffalo in 1895/6/7 while Marlin was producing the majority 1895's. He was still listed in Buffalo as late as Jan. 1899 and then appears in a Utica census in June 1899.
If 4309 was produced in Utica later on after Marlin work was completed, I suppose there is a chance Tue could have done the engraving.
Another possibility is that Tue traveled to Utica from Buffalo.
Another possibility is that auction description is incorrect.
A ledger page may show the manufacture date.

As I recall, the elk/dog pattern we see on the 1895's is like one of the Marlin engraving patterns. We've talked about this before.

If someone has a pic(s) of #4309 please post.