Fox SW year of manufacture?

[wannagohunting]

I am looking at a Fox Sterlingworth 16ga serial # 375388.
I tried numerous places to figure out year made. So far I get this.

1938 374800
Highest no 378481

and no more listings.

Please help me figure this out.

Thank you

[Researcher]

The only way to figure it out is to get a letter from the Savage historian --

http://www.foxcollectors.com/ah_fox/con ... tters.html

[wannagohunting]

OK Thank you.
Most all other manufacturers of my other guns LC Smith, Parker, Lefever have published dates so I did not realize this would require a letter.

[Researcher]

Fox serial numbers are in blocks by gauge and whether Sterlingworth or graded gun --

12-gauge Graded Guns -- 1 to 35280
12-gauge Sterlingworths -- 50000 to 161556
16-gauge Graded Guns -- 300000 to 303875
16-gauge Sterlingworths -- 350000 to 378481
20-gauge Graded Guns -- 200000 to 203974
20-gauge Sterlingworths -- 250000 to 271304
Single Barrel Trap Guns -- 400000 to 400568

I have some real problems with the published Fox serial number chronology, which was originally put out in 1976 by Lightner Library.

For 16-gauge Fox-Sterlingworths they are showing production of 500 (1931), 600 (1932), 600 (1933), 700 (1934), 1100 (1935), 1500 (1936), 700 (1937) and then 1600 for 1938. Then the serial numbers from 374800 to 378481 are given for 1939 up to the last gun made 8/9/1939. I don't believe there is any way they all of a sudden pumped out 3681 16-gauge Fox-Sterlingworths in eight or nine months!!! From my 20 or so years of recording serial numbers of observed Sterlingworths, guns in the 375,xxx, 376,xxx, 377,xxx and 378,xxx range certainly exist.

On the 12-gauge Fox-Sterlingworths they estimate the highest serial number for 1937 as 145000, for 1938 as 150000 and for 1939 as 155000. Again from my years of observing and recording serial numbers, I haven't recorded a gun between 143802 and 160195, leading me to believe there were about 16000 serial numbers skipped. Perhaps the high 143xxx range was the end of regular production and the guns in the 160xxx and 161xxx range were cleanup of parts and barrels on hand?!? All of the guns I've recorded in that range are 26-inch barrels except one two-barrel set that also has a pair of 28-inch barrels. Recently looking at pictures of the file boxes of the Fox production cards at the Savage factory I see boxes with numbers up to 143800 then boxes with 160000 and 161000

Like the 12-gauges, there is a gap in the observed 20-gauge Sterlingworth serial numbers from guns in the mid-266xxx serial number range, observed specimens jump to the 270xxx range. A gap in serial numbers of about 3500 guns.

FWIW, those Lefever serial numbers are just someone's guess. There are no surviving Lefever Arms Co. records.