Manufacture date vs Ship Date

[grouse28]

Serial number of my A grade is 200458 which would indicate a 1913 manufacture date.
Savage letter indicates it was shipped 09/04/19 to Bingham W. C. Cleveland OH.
Card is illegible as to who received the gun but in no way looks like Bingham.
Other info matches.
Does not seem like a gun would sit at the factory for 6 years.
Comments from the pros? Thanks!
ps Letter from Savage took a few weeks to receive.

[Researcher]

Sure it would. I have two 12-gauge guns only 14 serial numbers apart. One shipped in 1914 and the other in 1918. I have photocopies of many of the sheets Roe Clark used when he tabulated the graded 16- and 20-gauge guns for McIntosh's book. There are fifty serial numbers per sheet, and on some of the sheets there is as much as a twelve year spread on ship dates. On the sheet which includes your gun, the earliest ship date is June 2, 1914. Twenty-two guns on that sheet shipped during 1914. Two shipped in 1915, nine shipped in 1916, two shipped in 1917, five shipped in 1918, and three in 1919. Six didn't have a date on the card and one card was missing.

[grouse28]

Wow, Thanks for the education.
Does not seem to be a good business model to carry inventory for that long.
My impression was that these "hardware store" guns sold well.

[MARSHFELLOW]

Thanks Dave, that tabulation is fascinating.
tjw

[MilRob]

Say the serial number shows the gun was manufactured in the philly era but shipped in the savage era how would that gun most likely left the factory? Barrels struck as philly or Utica?