1) Utica's Semi-Weekly Herald reports on October 12th, 1897 that Marlin had contracted with Savage for 5,000 rifles, and that Savage has but 1,200 on hand and they are selling at 300 a month. Also says the Savage company had received offers from other gun companies to buy the Savage patents, but did not like giving up a good thing.

2) Utica's New York Observer newspaper on November 17th, 1897 reporting on a meeting of Savage Repeating Arms and the Utica Chamber of Commerce, reports that the Savage company had contracted with Marlin for 5,000 rifles and "these guns have all been made, and almost all sold".

3) NY Sunday Journal in 1900 or 1901 (no firm date on the page), reports that Savage contracted for 10,000 rifles and that Marlin refused to renew the contract.


Now, legal contracts can always have options for extensions. So it's fully possible that Marlin contracted for 5,000 rifles with an option to do another 5,000 if both parties were willing - and Marlin wasn't willing. But since we know that Marlin produced 5,000 rifles, it seems that 5,000 was the number that Marlin had to produce.

Anybody find or know of other early references to either the 5,000 or 10,000 numbers?

Very thorough research Rory, Thanks!

but 10,000 by Marlin would mean EVERY 1895 was made by them. That may be an easier search, finding an1895 that was NOT made by Marlin. How about the known 1895's with JM stamps, do they all have under #5000 serial numbers?

Does Savage 95 serial number 1 exist? I've never heard any talk about the whereabouts of certain serial numbers such as 1, 10, 100, 1000, etc... What do we know of those rifles?

I have SN 6226, it has the JM stamp.

From David's book, "Opinions differ on how many 1895s were produced, but available data seems to indicate that serial numbers started a little above 3000 and ended at 8000 plus for a total production of roughly 5000 1895s."

What Jaaack said, except the log book shows a handful of 1895's with serial numbers in the 9000 range iirc. None of those have been seen. Yet.

Mr. Callahan once made a reference to early 1895's with serial numbers under 3000, but none have been seen and the comments by the directors to the Chamber of Commerce in 1895 would indicate that SN 3000'ish to 8000'ish is all of them.

Great research Rory. My 1895 octagon barrel rifle has serial number 6274 and has both the "J" and "JM" stamps. The stamps are pictured in my book in Fig. 2-19 on page 21 in my book. Does anyone else have an 1895 with both stamps? David

Read here:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/3949993/1

Sounds like fake news.

Alternative facts