Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Off topic: Here's an example of a Bullard from the Julia auction (bad economy?)

I am still shaking my head over what happened yesterday. This is just one example. An auction estimate of $4000 to $7000 and it brings $24,000! Bad economy? Where?

Estimated Price:
$4,000 - $7,000
Realized Price:
$24,000

SN 1823. Cal. 38-45 Bullard. Beautiful deluxe rifle with 26" oct to rnd bbl, half magazine, with standard dovetail front sight and a Bullard flat top rear sight with Lyman combination tang sight. Top left side of receiver is marked with the company name, address & patent number with "MODEL 1886" on top right side. Receiver, lever, hammer & forend cap are color case hardened. Mounted with very highly figured, shell grain American walnut with 3-panel checkered forearm and serpentine grip buttstock with hard rubber buttplate that is embossed "BULLARD / REPT'G. ARMS CO" and has a raised embossed turkey gobbler inside a frame of branches. Top tang channel of buttstock is stamped with matching SN. The 38-45 Bullard cartridge was proprietary and also invented by the inventor of the rifle. It was very similar to the 38-55 Winchester cartridge and offered little advantage over its contemporaries. According to the book Bullard Arms, Jamieson, few rifles were chambered in this caliber. Bullard rifles are considered today as the smoothest operating and finest lever action rifles ever produced. They utilized a rack & pinion system to operate the bolt which was extremely smooth and strong. A patent was granted to James Bullard in 1881 with production not beginning until about 1883. According to Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms there were only 10,000-12,000 of these fine rifles produced by the time they ceased production in 1890. Mr. Bullard, a consummate inventor, was known to have a short attention to business attitude once a product was perfected, then on to something more interesting. He had numerous patents in all sorts of machinery, steam production, steam engines, oil burners and firearms. The Bullard rifle was produced in both large frame & small frame versions along with a musket model and a carbine. Although the design of these rifles was far superior to either the Winchester or Marlin or any other lever action available at that time or since, the stiff competition from Winchester & Marlin with their advanced manufacturing & distribution systems ultimately forced the demise of the Bullard rifle with only these few, noted above, ever having been manufactured. Few are found today with high orig finish. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: According to Scott Jamieson, noted Bullard scholar, the correct product number of these rare small frames was only 500, not 12,000 as stated in the catalog. PROVENANCE: Wes Adams Estate Collection. CONDITION: Extremely fine plus. Bbl & magazine tube retain 98-99% strong orig blue with light sharp edge wear, a couple of small nicks & a couple of small chemical spots on the bbl; receiver, breech block & forend cap retain virtually all of their brilliant orig case colors, lightly faded on the belly at the carry point; hammer retains lightly faded case colors; lever retains bright case colors on sides and sheltered areas with outer faces fading to silver; wood is sound with a few light nicks & scratches, some minor crazing and very light diamond point wear on checkering and overall retains about all of its fine orig varnish finish. Mechanics are crisp, brilliant shiny bore. 4-44533 JR466


Estimated Price: $4,000 - $7,000

http://www.artfact.com/auction-lot/rare-special-order-deluxe-bullard-model-1886-leve-3-p-cc73caf425
..

The person that bought that gun isn't too worried about the state of the economy.

The rich get richer................the poor get poorer

Sweet..

But it's not a Savage.

Speaking of non-Savages, here's some more sample realized prices from the Julia auction:

$17,500
$39,500
$24,000
$17,000
$25,500
$36,000
$18,000
$18,000
$25,000
$20,000
$16,000
$26,000
$18,500

No, they are not Savages, not Bullard or Winchesters, not lever guns and in fact, not guns at all. They are knives, with a couple of hatchets thrown in! A bit of a lesson here - if you find a knife marked, "Scagel" at a yard sale, don't stress too much if you can't get the person down from $10 to $5

If ya bought one 30 yrs ago for 1500....fair return.
Now the taxman cometh.
Good stuff bringing good money: = No surprise. Always ben that way.
Condition, Condition, Condition.....

The folks dropping the coin on those blades and/or rifles are as
Randy mentions...the rich getting richer. I could give a flying mcphuck about anyones bank account, it's their business on the buying or selling end of why or why not...BUT I promise you the dudes dropping the pen to the paper on all of the above are not sweating filling their 275 Gal. oil tank at $4.00+ a gallon....NOOOOOOOOOOO...they got it, they can spend it...any way they choose. I am not speaking to spending 3 G's on a rifle you have a boner for either ...the 3G's has most of us sweating...the rifles and blades BOLTMAN is pondering are a tad more than that. The economy effects those in the middle the most. My opinion.




*edit for missing words! I am losing it!

And I see it's had the receiver drilled for access to change the extractor - my understanding was that never was factory and was only done so it could be changed without removing the bolt out.

On a related note, we can all entertain ourselves with the prices realized on the Amoskeag auction in a few weeks. There are some Savages that are junk...I know schitt in the grand scope of it, but a majority are crap...cracks, holes, not much condition...everything that gets cycled here regularly about detraction factors. More than a few are very common arrangements and calibers. I will not be surprised when the finals come out and the prices are met and exceeded and that is before the juice. People love buying stuff...period. Good, bad or ugly. Been there myself! The place will be chock full of folks with plenty of scratch, the phone lines will be lit and the bidding will go well for Jason. See you there!

Were the ejectors weak in those things?

My bad - the extractor!!! In the book on Bullard this is disscused. (I am going back and correct my previous post)

I guess the one Loggahs Brother has, the 50-110, just took a big jump in price! has to have been one of the coolest guns I have ever shot!

Okay, now I am paying the price for posting auction information

However, I held out very little hope that Dick would unclench his hands from that one.

Bumped into a 50-110 not long ago at a small gun show.

Guy told me cause he liked me I could take it home for 9,000 cash.

I reckon that is about 9 or 10 pretty nice 99's or an endless combination of really cool stuff like Remington model 14's or WW ll M1 Garands and carbines,Thompsons, 1911's, Lugers, MP 40's and 44's

Left the Bullard there.

Just a point of minor clarification - the Bullard was chambered in .50-95 and .50-115, not .50-110. Don's brother has a .50-115. I recall talking to the fellow you mention. He didn't like me as much as he didn't offer it to me for $9000. I think a friend of mine ran into him at a gun show in the last couple weeks - I think he said he wanted $12,000 for it. You know, $12,000 really isn't much - it won't even get you a .22 HP

Steve:

You are right it was a 50-115. Duh!

The fact that he still has it tells me he don't want to sell it too bad. I guess he couldn't find anybody to give him 9 for it so he raised the price to 12 to see if he could sell it.

Maybe Ralph don't really want to sell the HP either?

Maybe he should raise the price to 15?

Might find some interest then.

The high bidders on any Bullard likely read Scott Jamieson's article in the National Firearms Associations May/June 2011 Canadian Firearms Journal.
In it Jamieson (author The Bullard Book)indicates there were only 2800 Bullard rifles produced in all variations.
1700 Large frame repeaters
500 Small frame repeaters
600 single shot rifles

1 - 1500 Large Frame repeaters
1501 - 2000 Small Frame repeaters
2501 - 2700 Large Frame repeaters
3501 - 4100 Single Shot

This is way less than the 10,000 to 12,000 quoted in the auction write up on the Bullard.
BillR