Who has early guns with flame checkering? Just curious what serial number range they show up in. If you have a letter on the gun with an accepted date, bonus points.

I'd be curious about any that are after WWI also, rifles with options are so rare after that.

My rifle has a ton of options, so almost surely was delivered much later than the serial number indicates. It's 36.5xx. Need to letter it.

Rory, my rifle s/n 37.747. has that style flame checkering also, the letter states.

303 full octagon barrel,fancy american walnut pistol grip stock and forearm
accepted from the factory to warehouse Dec 23, 1902, shipped Dec 23, 1902
to the Globe Printing Co.

It doesn't say anything about the checkering, but im sure its factory original.

Wouldn't those look cool as flames on a hot rod! Nice rifle - how about a full picture.

Beautiful gun, Don! That beats the earliest flame checkered date I had by 9 months. I'm sure it's factory also, only possibility is if it was sent back and checkering added later (unlikely in my mind).

As a side note, your gun is near the best serial number data I have for end of 1902 - so it doesn't appear that fancy stock/checkering/buttplate would slow a gun down much from being shipped. Engraving apparently does.

Don't pictures like those usually come tri-folded with staples in the middle - or am I thinking of that Heffner magazine?

Mine is 24.4xx, B engraved, flame checkering, 26" round barrel, no pistol grip, plastic BP, high grade wood. David

Process, process, process.
Speculation but, Savage likely manufactured a high percentage of rifles to a forecast per month. Standard models as advertised. They probably also had a "special order" production line so as not to upset normal production.

Beyond that it depends upon what Savage had for finished parts, ready to be assembled as a special order rifles.
Speculation again but, if they stocked all flavors of unfinished wood they could pretty easily pull the wood per work order and have it checked, finished or whatever. Fit it to a finished receiver, test, inspect and done. Days.

Engraving is done on complete and inspected receivers that were unfinished. So they likely had white receivers ready to go as well. The hand engraving (no air tools) took some time, but, I suspect a guy like Tue could knock out pattern A's & B's fairly quickly. Days not weeks. The advanced more complex patterns C-G and extras may take weeks, then need to be mated with appropriate wood, etc. Weeks.

Presentation rifles with custom patterns, gold inlays, etc. would take much much more time, but not many ever produced. I think the Gough/Iran rifle normally would have taken 3-4 months to complete. It was expedited 24/7 and completed in 6 weeks.

Things I've read about the early Savage factory sounds like it was smooth runnibng machine with much process and systems in place to monitor all aspects of production. So they could produce ~1000 rifles per month and dozens of special orders rifles as well.

Them flames are freaking awesomeness!

Thats very low. Much lower than i expected, especially if its not engraved.

Rory, thought I had a letter on it but can't find it. As far as the higher grades taking a long time goes, my "F" engraved serial # 211xx was finished in 1901 and not shipped until 1906. It was possibly a factory display rifle or could it have taken that long. The letter says that it was originally a 30-30 with a half octagon barrel but the barrel was changed to full octagon .303 before being shipped to the owner Luke M. Allen. Allen's name is engraved on the bottom of the receiver. David

Found the letter. It "...was completed and accepted from the factory to the warehouse July 1, 1901." "...it was shipped March 4, 1902 to the 'New York Show'. There are no other entries for additional shipments or disposition. This rifle was apparently used as as office sample." This is a quote from the JTC letter. David

Flame checkering in 1901? That confuses things a lot, actually. But, what else is new in Savage land, eh?

With Savage never say never. Maybe it was a prototype. they did send it to the New York show.

Possible.. but one also can't rule out that it was sent back for the flame checkering and they just didn't make a job order listing. Not likely.. but as you say, never say never. It's obviously factory.

Was hoping you'd make it to Tulsa this year. With the snow storm I drove through in Kansas on the way home, you'd have felt right at home.

Why is it thought flame checking would/should be at a later date?

It's not in the early catalogs. First shows up in the 1905 catalogs, as far I've been able to track down. There was an earlier B style checkering which was a fleur-de-lis pattern, and it went away when the flame checkering showed up and the flame checkering became the B pattern (well.. it disappeared from the catalogs, but continued to show up on some guns for a while).

The Leader Grade picture in the 1904 catalog even has the fleur-de-lis pattern, but you can't believe catalog pictures...

The first checkering was the "$5" which became the "A" then the "A3".
Then the "$8" which became the "B" in the fleur-de-lis pattern which later changed to the flame pattern and the "C" .
Then the "AA" which became the "A2".
Lastly the "A5" and Carved were offered.

That is what is in the catalogs. Doesn't mean that they were not available earlier or that you couldn't have other patterns.

Bark Eater has an 1899 serial # 1003X with Flame checkering half round half octagon

This gun left the factory on Jan 23,1899 to William Read an Son Boston Mass so say the letter from Roe Clark

Soooo,it seems both styles of flame checkering could be had thru 1905! verrry interesting!

Can't get much earlier than that!

pics of my 1901 vintage flame checkered 1899A, serial #244xx.
overall

forearm

receiver

grip checkering

David

That is beautiful workmanship.

Thanks for posting that David, but that's actually the earlier Fleur-de-lis B checkering. Both the 1899-1904 B checkering and the 1905 new B had flames on the forearm, but only the newer B style had the flames on the buttstock.

My bad, i should have specified flames on the buttstock.

Beautiful rifle though, thanks for posting it up. Gives us a beautiful example of the earlier B checkering.

I may have missed it, but are checking variations documented somewhere? The pics in my repro catalogs are no good and leafing thru books yielded not much either.

Just a simple chart with the style type & a pic(s) would be helpful.
Better yet a matrix that shows style type(s) over approximate time vs. straight/pistol grips, panels, fores. (Mention of Rival, Victor, etc. just makes it more confusing)

I sorta follow the comments above, it's a little confusing and I doubt my visuals are correct.
Is?
"A" & "A3" = 3 point checking
"B" = early fleur de lis pattern
"C" = later fleur de lis pattern
"AA" & "A2" = 2 point checking
"A5" = one of the above plus panels??
Carved = self explanatory
"Flame" = ???

I realize there may be variations of variations so keep it simple.

Be a good subject for a brief explanatory thread.. pic of each checkering style and names/costs.

Be a good thread to throw in the Misc. Good Info thread

Rick and Rory, this needs to go in my next book. I plan to use the trip to Savage Fest to gather info and photograph engraving and special feature rifles on my way there and then go to Ohio, Kentucky and New England afterwards. anyone with rifles in these categories contact me if you want your rifle included in the book. See my info below.
Thanks for clarifying that my rifle's checkering is fler-de-lis checkering. I thought that anything with flames was a variation of flame checkering. David

They are, but they are catalogued differences so worth knowing.

"Then the "$8" which became the "B" in the fleur-de-lis pattern which later changed to the "B" (added for clarification) flame pattern"

This took place around 1904 when the Leader grade was added. The catalog shows the B pattern changing at that time.

Fler-de-lis and flame are names we have given the B pattern (or early and late B) checkering to distinguish which we are taking about.

Was the flame offered before 1904? Was the fler-de-lis used after 1904? What were they called? My answer, so far, is: maybe, yes and I don't know...in that order. The only way to know is if the rifle is lettered and is clearly logged so you can match the pattern on the rifle to the logged info and the production date. Even then you can't be sure all the info is there.

I think the C has always been C checkering and mostly used on the higher grade engraved rifles. The C started (1903 catalog) as a $15 option and in 1905 and later when the other named specials were added it was standard on the Rival and then the Crescent grade.

The only way to acquire the engraving and checkering info is to pull it from each catalog. Even then you have to watch for catalog errors and it was not listed in all catalogs.

I have a 1899 model G serial #2483xx. I posted pictures in the gallery but I wasn’t able to attach them.
John

Beautiful gun! Thanks, it's good seeing some late guns with special options - it's odd they are so rare, though maybe folks would just buy the 99G since it has checkering/pistol grip and they didn't have to wait.

Wow!

Last catalog listing for all the specials was 1927 but you seldom see a rifle with specials after WWI. Your flame (B) checkering in 1923 was $11.50.

Thanks for the information. I had forgotten about it until I saw the pictures in this thread,it hasn’t been out of the safe since 1970.

I am trying to understand the transition from 1899 special orders to the 99K. Murray states there was no preceding model to the 99K. Are there examples of flame checkering after the introduction of the K? Do the 1899 special order guns compare in value to the K, or is the K just a factory upgrade to the G, and the special order in a category of it's own? Sorry for so many questions, just wondering about investment in a K. Mike

In 1927 they introduced the 99K, and they also still listed all the 1899 engraving from A to F and checkering styles. So there could be grade B (flame checkered) or even grade C checkered rifles that date to the same time that 99Ks were made. The 99K is closest to the A style of engraving, and maybe that was what they were doing for A engraving in the mid-20's, not sure I've seen a non-99K engraved rifle with standalone A engraving from that time to compare it to.

Later on, they offered 99K style checkering and engraving, but the 1899 engraving went away.

Also, with the intro of the K all of the options went away. Tue, the original Savage engraver transitioned to Gough. The engraving, as stated above, is a lesser version of the original A (there were slight changes in the pattern over the years) and checkering is the A5. The K came with a Lyman 29 1/2 tang sight which was the first time a tang sight was sold as a standard feature on an 1895/1899/99. Current pricing of a K verses an earlier Special Orders is easier as the biggest variation is the caliber and condition.

LBK has a solid frame "K" at least that is what memory says.

CTW, I looked back at past postings and found a K that several member have owned. The letter did not state that it shipped as a solid frame K but that it had been returned for some type of additional work. But as all things Savage...never say "never".