Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors legit or fraud?

I realize this is a "live" auction which I typically do not post, however, this is an educational post that I doubt will do any harm to anyone except the seller.

Savage Pistol 1907

At first blush, to me the nickel does not look right. And I possess a number of factory nickel pistols w/letters.
Further look and it appears nickel over pitting.
On the accompanying letter, while the format and wording appear to be a JTC letter the font is not JTC font and the letterhead and signature appear fuzzy.
A deeper look at JTC letters, I posses JTC letter #8162 dated May 2016 with typical JTC font.
The auction letter is #8022 dated July 2017 with arial font. A lower letter # with a later date than my letter. Red flag.

I have a number of JTC letters and the letter # and dates are all sequential.

Conclusion:
IMO This pistol has been after market nickeled and the accompanying letter is a fraud.

Dear Fraudster,
If you are reading this, shame on you!
The auction listing has been reported as fraudulent.

Hard saying as the pictures are not very good. And I am not familiar with the aging process of nickle plating, especially when it is in excess of a century old. If you look at picture 5 in front of the trigger guard the plating appears to consist of two layers with a bit of the top layer having "flaked" off. Could it have been replated over the factory plating? The factory letter supports the originality of the nickle finish, given the letter is honest. But I don't really know how nickle pating is done or if one could replate like I suggsted. So to keep this topic moving along my vote goes for factory orginal finish, however not in the greatest condition.

PS - I really don't know how much these little pistols go for, but I certainly could see spending 600-bucks on something else much more worthwhile.

Did JTC have bad spelling? That letter has misspelled words.

Agreed.
Someone viewed a factory letter and attempted to duplicate it with content and phraseology.
A zoomed view of the letter and one can tell that a "letter" was generated with added letterhead, letter # and signature with photoshop or equivalent.
Fraud fraud fraud.

I would bet a boot full of money this whole deal is fraudulent.

I'll better qualify my "vote." I think it may have been replated as I suggested in my first post. Making it not a factory original finish, at least up top. Has anyone ever encountered a fraudulant factory letter? I'm not saying that couldn't happen, but instead just asking.

The gun doesn't look like it was plated recently. I only have two nickel plated guns from around the same era ( neither of them Savages) and the nickel didn't age like the one in the link. Not that it means anything, I'm sure Colt didn't use an identical plating process. The letter does look suspect to me though.

If it isn't legit, it doesn't mean the seller knows it. Doesn't mean they don't either.

I wasn't a fan of the 1907s until pretty recently. Now I can't seem to live without one. See what hanging out with you fellas does to a guy?

Letterhead/bottom curvature clearly show that it's printed from a picture of a letter, and is not the original letter.

It's also 8 months after JTC retired as historian and returned the records to Savage. He retired on 10/25/2016, letter is dated 7/8/2017.

Given that, one would have to assume it's a fake letter.

I thought the grips looked like new replica's, they look to shiny for originals, but the pictures are not all that good. I do not believe I have ever seen a JTC letter before without the 'notary' punch or stamp or what ever it's called that he always used.

ADDED - https://www.google.com/maps This is a close to Cleveland as you can find that matching street address, I personally would not want to live there but, maybe John H. Higgens would, and I can't find anyone with that spelling of the last name, only Higgins.

There seems to not be a 1st Street in Cleveland, just an East 1st Street without a West.. and it looks to me more like like an alley than a real street - 1st+Street,+Cleveland,+

The seller claims the pistol and paper came in a buyout of some sort.
Claims no authenticity, only the pistol and paper.

The GB description does claim authenticity, “factory nickel w/letter.

Not going to argue or debate the seller or anyone else.
The burden of proof is on the seller.
This is a dog pistol with a forged document.

I'm satisfied we've reached a consensus. Thank you Southern_WI_Savage for being this up. It's a great discussion topic. I never would have thought about people bothering to do this for an item like this.

On another subject, and maybe I should start a new thread, how do the 1907s shoot?

just can't get any thing past you fellows, good to know...

JTC didn't leave a space before a coma as is very prevalent in this letter. Even if he had used a different font he would not have change the way he constructed his sentences.

I think someone copied a letter with the middle covered then printed the new text into the center.

Well done Rick. The different font is what caught my eye first...then all the other errors started to pile up.

This is fun.

Has anyone “called” the seller on this? Or at least let him know that there’s a credible issue in the facts he’s using to promote his auction?

Yes.
Read a few posts back.
He was advised to remove the “factory” from the nickel description, remove the fake letter and destroy it.
List his pistol as is.

Good job!

I too noted the same things. I believe it is a complete fraud.

But in the longshot that Callahan had a weird computer crisis he was working around 🙄, I am in the process of getting a serial check on that pistol.

Now Calhoun, I missed seeing that. You are correct.

Looks like the seller put it back up again.

Confirming what we all thought, complete and bad done deliberate forgery.

227876