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Sporrns wrote:I am with Dave and Craig - I have lobbied before for approaching Savage in a gentlemanly way to ask permission for a work party effort to copy the Sterlingworth cards similar to the effort that gave us the cards for the graded guns. In previous posts, I have alluded to how the PGCA approached Remington for permission to copy the Parker Gun records, including details on the manpower requirements (e.g., a Research Team approach, dedicated time on their calendar, available copying equipment, etc.). I'm convinced that this is the only way we will ever gain access to the Sterlingworth cards. I'm also convinced that there are people in this organization that have "ins" with Savage and can help facilitate this. If we get the Go from Savage, I could see spending a week in Springfield MA copying cards during the day and having pleasant evenings with dinners out locally, then kicking back at the motel with fine cigars and single malts....almost like Ilion. Kevin
Kevin, if you wait 2 years I'll retire and give you a hand.
A different perspective. I've always questioned the effort days vs. "value added" by having copies of the Sterlingworth cards. I'll extrapolate here just with rounded numbers .…. Billy and Hal used 2 rented Xerox machines for 2 weeks in 1992 to copy some 30,000 Graded record cards. That's about 7500 cards per person week = 1500/person day. Now, consider there are about 150,000 Sterlingworth cards. 150000/1500 = 100 person days at Westfield. Hence 10 weeks each for 2 people, about 7 weeks each for 3 people, etc. Another consideration is the value added. Almost all Sterlies were built to a standard and their cards just don't have much info as compared with the Graded cards. OK we might get more data on number of Sterlies made with different barrel lengths, but other than for comparative gun value estimates who really cares? The market will always set real time value on each gun put up for sale.
Lastly, it's 2020 not the happy days of 1992 and most industries are now a lot more sensitive to non-employees being on their premises from the standpoint of liability if someone trips, falls on a staircase, etc. I really doubt the Savage decision makers would be supportive of such a task, but heck, go for Savage's approval after a cohort of AHFCA members commit their time.
Again, just my perspective.
frank
Last edited by Silvers on Thu Apr 16, 2020 3:36 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Fox20obsessed wrote:Frank,
(cut) …… It was tight as a drum with the forend off and after those few low pressure loads it was loose with the forend off. When I inspected the barrels it appeared to have a glaring flaw. The barrels were uneven where they make contact with the breech face. Read that as one tube was longer than the other. It took me a while to figure out what caused it to shoot loose but when I put a straight edge across the breech end of the barrels one tube was about 1/32” longer than the other. Factory worker must have come to work drunk that day or something. I was probably more sad than mad because this gun was super clean, mint in fact with ALL of the case colors and bluing, best barrels I have seen come out of utica…… -Matt
Thanks Matt for the explanation but I still can't understand the details. 1) the barrel extension prevents putting a straight edge across the barrel breeches except at the very bottom, across the extractor, and the limited plane of contact there isn't indicative of the evenness or lack thereof of the barrel breeches against most of the standing breech. 2) that 1/32" is over 30 thousandths and even if the barrel fitter came to work totally gooned, the proofer and/or quality inspector should have caught one barrel being longer than the other and a breech face gap that large after fitting. 3) you mentioned not wanting to carry a gun that loose and from that I perceive you mean you could feel looseness with the forend on and gun closed. I just can't see how that could be with a mint gun that fired only a dozen shells. NET, this technician can't understand how the problem you cited happened but as they say, we can learn something new every day.
Frank, thanks for the insight. What I specifically remember in copying the Parker records was that we had access to 4 copy machines (2 Remington, 2 leased), our work party fluxed between 8 and 12 members (some came for a few days, most where there a week), we were basically allowed to work from about 8:30 am to 4:45 pm with a 1/2 hour for lunch on premises, and after a solid 5-day week we wound up with 33,600 pages 8 1/2 x 17 legal sized records. A significant portion of these were sheets of multiple IBM cards, which Remington had gone to for record keeping after the Parker buyout and the move to Ilion. The rest were copies of full pages from the Order Books (CDR Roy Gunther had copied the Stock Books before that time).
Dave, our biggest gaps in the Parker records were due to missing Stock and Order Books, many of which bridged the very significant years immediately prior to and just after the turn of the century in 1900 in terms of the transitions from hammer to hammerless, bolting, trigger, and action designs, modification and production. Also missing were repair records which could have provided valuable clues in determining if a particular gun had been factory or after-market altered. Kevin
There is so much negativity now in the gun market for manufacturers this could be a more receptive environment for a group that wants to promote the historical significance of the brand at no cost to them.
I would be happy to approach if there is a clear concise plan to put forth.
I would also add that this could be done in a much quicker and easier fashion via digital Techniques. Would not take that long.
James
James Palmer
Interested in the preservation of Vintage American Shotguns
I live in CA
Thank you very much James - I will explore this further for a better idea/approach to the task. Would also be interested in your take on digital techniques available for getting this done. Kevin
As I have suggested in previous posts, I think the better idea is to have Savage give the physical records to the Fox Gun Collectors Association and the association will deal with them after they are in the hands of the association. My friends Bill Harris and Hal Hamilton did a great service for us, but it isn't over yet. There are a few tidbits in the Sterlingworth record deserving of attention, not to dismiss the back sides of some of the grade guns cards. I was on the Parker Gun Collectors Association research team at Ilion in 1998 and I will admit that copying the Sterlingworth cards is not the best approach. I again recommend that we approach Savage to give up the physical possession of the cards.
Copy machines available today can auto feed documents and convert the image to a PDF document. When I converted the paper copies of the graded records produced by Bill Harris that is what I had done.
Whichever copying technique is used ….. the cards are individual, in small boxes and will require a lot of handwork to copy in some fashion. That brings up the chicken or egg question? First step in my mind, before contacting Savage, is to get FIRM commitments from a cadre of Fox members who will step up and devote significant personal time to this project and thereby gain a modicum of information on Sterlies. With that said, who will commit what number of days in Westfield? I am not one of them. Other members, please reply here.
Bill's suggestion about actually asking for the cards as a donation brings up another question since all the BD members are volunteers and there's been/will be some movement in and out of the BD ranks. Where is the permanent AHFCA facility that's secure and HVAC enabled to keep the cards for the future? It will likely have to be something like a large garage size structure and with at least a part time paid curator.
Another related question is, who has what items that were donated to or funded by the AHFCA over the past 12+ years? Also, how are they being stored? It would be good to keep a permanent and real time record list of such items here on the Members part of the site.
frank
Last edited by Silvers on Thu Apr 23, 2020 10:01 am, edited 3 times in total.
As Frank points out taking possession of the cards is not practical and I fully agree, we are not a museum. Our structure as a non-profit educational association 501 c 3 does not allow us to operate a museum. Accepting donations accept cash is not encouraged. However, I believe members costs associated with copying the records like travel could be written off your personal income tax as a donation to a non-profit. (check with your tax advisor). A more useful project in my opinion would be keying all the information on the graded cards into a Access data base so it would be searchable and queries could be written to answer many questions like how many A grade guns were made with 32" barrels etc.
Also, from a practical standpoint we have difficulty getting members to man display booths and write NL articles, how many will really volunteer for such a large project??
I'm not in a position to recommend how or what should be done as to storage and/or setting up a searchable database. I would make a FIRM commitment to helping the effort to copy or whatever would be involved with helping to record the information.
Stan
