Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Earliest Enoch Tue engraved rifle?

So, Enoch Tue engraved rifles for Savage from 1900 through 1916. Anybody have any idea what serial number range his rifles started at?

The lowest engraved 1899 serial in my data is in the 113xx range. Pictures of the engraved 1899's don't appear till the 1900 catalog. But I have no idea at what serial range Tue started. I would think Tue would have created his own patterns but I might be wrong.

Well, I haven't seen that many engraved 1895's to compare to.


Just curious, since I've got one at 11.5xx. But mine wasn't released from the factory until June 1901, so I'm sure there were quite a few before it.

Jed, that's awesome stuff!

I'll scan in some info I got from Doug regarding engraved rifles. It lists 100 of the engraved rifles from 1900 to 1916, but the lowest serial is 1902 or 1903. Made me wonder what the earliest engraved 1899's were.

It also says that Tue did the engraving from 1900 until 1916, but there wasn't much engraving after 1916 until Goff started the K-type engraving.

IIRC that D engraved 250-3000 I owned,was manufactured in 1920-21
Directory shows Enoch's bride as a widow in 1927

The first gun engraved by Tue was serial #10,000 grade not

known.

Second was serial #10.785 with "D" grade pattern.

Third was serial #11.3xx this was a special order "G" grade

with shotgun butt and "special carving" this was the highest

grade of engraving offered at that time.The factory records

show it was shiped to Roberts Hardware,Utica,NY. Mr. Roberts

was also a director and stockholder of Savage Arms Co.

This gun was shiped on April 14,1900

Rory,

1) Tue did not engrave the 1895's.
2) Might have started working for Savage as early as 1899(?).
3) It is common to find engraved rifles with lower serial numbers than when the rifle was produced. Speculate that receivers were pulled and stored or started and completed later.
4) Murray's numbers can not be used for the early years.
5) From my data I would say that engraved rifles was heaviest in the 1903-1915. Some engraving in the early post WWI period but dropped off fast.

In the list that Jed supplied (great info!)it shows Gough in 1930 and Tue dead in 1927. The K's started in 1926/27...were they all Gough engraved? The "K" pattern is a lesser version of the "A". Lots of unanswered questions, as always.

I Googled Enoch Tue...this posting came up.

Gough came to Savage when Savage bought Fox but he had done
1899-99s when he had his own shop. Guns were shiped in the
white so the factory records say.

Great info! Man, I would LOVE to see that first 1899. Someday it'll probably pop up, can't believe it's gone forever.

I knew he didn't do the 1895's, the Marlin guy did them I believe (can't remember name). I also knew the engraving was more common early on, but didn't know that it tapered off that sharply after WWI.

Wonder if Tue's son did the early K's before Gough, since they were basically a style that had been around for 20 years?


So.. by serial number my rifle is the 4th earliest that's known? That's cool! Now, if only it had lettered..

Conrad Ulrich is the name...it's worthy of remembering

Yes it is.. knew it when I saw it.

Gonna scribble it into my Murray's when I get home.

...no, just from my data. My data is just a sampling of the Savage production. I have info on about 60 engraved rifles. That is a higher percentage than on unengraved rifles but still only about 3%. The engraved guns get cataloged more often.

Doug, I have data on a 99-G with C engraving that was produced 8/1926, 283xxx, 9/8/2002 RIA catalog. That might have been Gough's work. It would be interesting to compare that rifle to an earlier Tue rifle.

I have a big blank from that rifle back to the early 20's. I could use more data if you get your data base running.

I've seen several engraved savages [3 or 4]that did not state engraving in letter, but were obviously factory engraved.Acouple were verified by several established collectors and a couple by what was written in the letter from Callihan. Doug
My opinion is there may be more than a thousand engraved savages including the [K'S]; who knows.

The statement about the 1000 engraved 1899/99 is in the Blue Book and probably others. There have been quit a few Tue engraved rifles that do not show in the log books. Was it just not logged or was it done at home as piece work?

If you just looked through the pre-WWI logs that would be about 4000 log pages. Not a job most people would want.

The pamphlet that Jed posted mentions 300 engraved rifles by Tue prior to WWI -- that was 204 months. Would 1.5 rifles a month be a bad estimate? It obviously depends on the amount of engraving..

Another question on this line is how many rifle could one person engrave in a year? Did Tue only engrave or did he do other work in the slack times? If between 1902 and 1916 (15 years) he engraved one a week that would be about 750 units. Add the slower post war years and you get about 1000. Is that realistic? Could he do two a week or three...I don't know.

Not all engraving was special order. Many were on the books for years. Probably samples for display in the plant or at shows. Some were logged to two or three distributors before they were sold. Might have required some refinish work along the way.

The engraved/special rifles have to be studied as a whole different group having their own questions and problems from the standard production run. What is a given for one may not hold true for the other.

Tue was transient.
You see all his address's?
I'm thinking he did piece work at home.
My understanding was that W.I. King was also a Savage transient,working for SAC in the winter months.