Well-kept Heirloom - any information welcome

[TOOL MAN]

Great stuff!! SDG was one of three, premiere NYC haunts for the well-heeled sportsman to get outfitted, along with Abercrombie + Fitch and Von Lengerke and Detmold. SDG was also a distributor and importer of many brands of European SxS' . How we all wish we could turn back the clock and visit any of those three venues during the golden age of hunting and competition shooting.

This would lead me to believe that Otto bought the gun in the 1920's on the secondary market and he was not the original consignor, correct? Or else he would surely have had it delivered straight from the Philly factory or from Tryon, Fox's largest account in the PA vicinity. Perhaps the after market beavertail and stock extension was in place when he purchased it? Thoughts?

SDG.jpg (37.71 KiB) Viewed 2115 times

[Jeff S]

Thanks for posting those great pictures. It's a beautiful gun.

[Abi]

Tool Man,

The scenario I have been mulling over in my head is this:
It's probable that the gun was made for Otto, around 1911

but then his son Fletcher, my great-uncle (who was also a dab hand at clay pigeon shooting), had it altered for his own use in the 1920's.
That is where the box and the butt plate and the extension came in, I think. He had no reason to take his dad's name off the stock. It might have been the time when they replaced the original beaver tail wood piece with a chestnut one.

Fletcher is how Otto's things ended up in that closet after all. He married Joe's daughter, my great-aunt Rose.

[Researcher]

Interesting stampings on the forearm iron. I've not seen one marked quite like that before. Guns with the early style A.H. Fox & G.A. Horne Patent No. 921,220 granted May 11, 1909, style ejectors were stamped Patents Pending.

After the A.H. Fox Gun Co. bought the factory and all things Philadelphia Arms Co. they owned the patents and once the A.H. Fox & G.A. Horne patent was granted the began stamping their ejector forearm irons with the the Fox & Horne patent date and the date of the Max Wirsing patent for ejectors that was assigned to Philadelphia Arms Co.

That Model 1911 stamp was normally seen on the forearm irons of extractor Sterlingworth "pin guns" --

18275 does have the 1911 F.T. Russell ejectors.

By 57 serial numbers later they had a roll-stamp that included the May 2, 1911 patent date of F.T. Russell's ejector Patent No. 991,375.

[Foxnut]

Oh what provenance, history with the heirloom gun! Thanks for sharing!

[49packard]

Thanks for sharing! It's a beauty good luck with it. Brian

[67galaxie]

This is just amazing!

[Abi]

Researcher,

That is indeed interesting about the stampings on the forearm iron. The 'model 1911' stamp on this gun was done twice, that is the first stamp was too faint, so they repeated with a second stamp which is a little off-set. The stamp below it is clearly the same as the post-Philadelphia Arms era stamp; it is even stamped in the same fashion, that is, with the left end deeper than the right. It's almost as if they tried to use the Sterlingworth stamp on a different kind of steel and it didn't take very well for 18275, and had to scramble for a new stamp by 57 serial numbers later. It is truly an interesting prototype.

Thank you! This is all so fascinating.