Fox Collectors

I finally sat down and totaled up the AH Fox production which is printed in the "A.H. Fox Chronology" (copyright 1976 R.W.Lightner) which I have had for the best part of thirty years. Most of us are familiar with it I rekon.

The numbers come out to approx: 42,800 graded guns, 550 SBTs, and 159,000 Sterlingworths....grand total approx 202,350.

Alot of info has come to light in the three decades hence...do "we" still think these numbers are reasonably accurate? opinions???

No. There seems to be a big gap in 12-gauge Fox-Sterlingworth numbers. I haven't recorded any guns between 143802 and 160195. In my twenty years of recording Sterlingworth serial numbers, I can't believe I wouldn't have seen some in this range if they exist.

In graded 20-gauge guns there are no cards from 203240 to 203501, and a smaller gap from 203018 to 203099.

Thanks Dave....now I've gotta check the sn's on the 4 or 5 12ga Sterlies I've got kicking around here.

I'm gonna make a note of that gap and check the guns I run into on the circuit. Tom

Tom, info given to me by Mr. R W (Bill) Harris is that he and his partner copied 32,901 graded Fox cards. As we know, almost all the graded cards < 10,000 s/n are missing. Adding an arbitrary figure of 10,000 graded guns would make a total very close to the figure you cited.

I had a chance to digitize some of the hard photos taken by Bill. Here's a couple of shots of the card storage area at the Savage factory as it was in 1991. Frank

........DOESN'T THAT PICTURE JUST MAKEYA CRAZY!!!! Love it.

Thanks Frank. tjw

A couple more pics. What a massive job it was to copy these cards!

I apologize for the quality of these images - these are digital macro photos of the hard pictures given to me by Bill. Thank you again Bill for all your hard work! Frank



L-R.... Dave Tolley (Savage) - Roe Clark - Hal Hamilton

Thanks for posting the pictures of the factory cards! What really drives me crazy is seeing what I suspect is an old galvanized water pipe running right over the shelves. Look at the ceiling just to the left of the shelves, it almost looks like a water leak happened somewhere above that spot in the past.

I hope these are being kept in a better storage facility today. They are way to valuable to let them be ruined by neglect and poor storage.

FRBRIT,

funny that you say that. I live a handful of miles from Remington Arms in Ilion, NY (and less miles from the original Savage grounds) and a bunch of years ago I was privilaged to hang around Remington quite a bit thru my very close friend who was a high level exec. at the time.

Long story short, the wonderful Parker leather bound ledger books, which are property of Remington Arms, were not kept in places deserving of their importance or whatever...as a matter of fact they were in squalor at that time. Subsequently, my friend and his contemporaries saw to it that these records (ledgers and IBM cards) were housed in a safe place (sans overhead sprinklers & crazy Mohawk Valley humidities) to be kept for many many more years.

I suspect the boys from the Parker Collectors group can attest to this.

My point is that I hope that the Fox records have been moved because your observation is very correct about their potentially devistating location.