Good info. From the numbers given the warehouse shelves should have been bare around Feb/March of 1898.

The last paragraph mentions other gun companies offered to buy patents.
Wonder if that was Bennett/Winchester. ??
1898 was after the 1896 military trials brewhaha with Winchester and after the fallout with J.M. Browning and Winchester.

Remington was bought by the owner of UMC in 1888, and Arthur was well acquainted with him. I'd guess that it was UMC/Remington, and can't rule out Marlin or Colt.

Yea, Arthur was probably not on any sort of speaking terms with Winchester and the others mentioned seem like logical suitors.

But what a crazy time for Arthur, to go from literally nothing but an idea, a few proto-types, to design, to Marlin production in a few short years. All the while raising capitol and promoting his rifle.
At the time of the newspaper article, the holy sh_t moment had already occurred. "The Savage Rifle is and will be a success,... I need a factory to build more as fast as possible."
Pretty amazing for a start up company to step in and compete with long established firearm companies while dealing with the myriad of obstacles along the way.

All true.. but don't forget that Arthur didn't own the rights to his patents in 1897. His 1893 patents had been signed over to the major investors of Savage Repeating Arms - J. Morris Childs, Richard S. Reynolds and Edwin H. Risley. His 1895 patents signed over to the Savage Repeating Arms Company. Arthur was under contract as general manager and was getting royalties.. but not calling the shots.

A lot of industrial miracles were happening at that time. People were motivated to accomplish things, not like now.