Fox Collectors

I just picked up a gun made by Frank Hollenbeck, Syracuse Arms. Extremely nice 12 gauge gun, beautiful pattern on the barrels, mint bores, pefect stock, has a 1 stamped along side of the serial number, I think is was 946 maybe. Does the gun have much value? Nice buttplate, 28 inch gun, tight as can be also. Jerry

A question on a Syracuse Arms Co. gun is best taken over to the L.C. Smith Collectors Association forum where Tom Archer, the Syracuse Arms Co. expert posts from time to time.

Thanks much. Did Frank H have anything to do with Fox? Jerry

I early 1900, Ansley H. Fox left his partners in the Fox Gun Co., Balto., Md. U.S.A., and became a professional shooter for Winchester.



On January 10, 1900, his former partners incorporated a new company, Baltimore Arms Co., under the laws of West Virginia, with their principle place of business Baltimore, Maryland. They built a new factory at the corner of South Sharp and Stockholm streets, and began building a new double on Frank A. Hollenbeck's Patent No. 643,601 granted Feb 13, 1900.



By the time they had completed and moved into the new factory, Frank A. Hollenbeck was off in West Virginia, founding the Hollenbeck Gun Co.

Hollenbeck ( and I think it was also called the Three Barrel Gun Company, Wheeling Gun Company and Royal Gun Company) , was stationed 3 miles from where I live! There are a ton of those guns in this area. Getting them from the owners is next to impossible. Jerry At one point a gunsmith named Fred Dewey did some work for them. I have viewed a few of those pieces but not enough to make an evaluation on the quality of work Fred Dewey could perform. ( This post was altered as I initially posted a critique that was truly not fair to the gunsmith and wasn't very Christian like at all. Anyone who read that post and was offended, I apologize. It was not really like me). Jerry

I never found anything about this Fred Dewey when I did my research for my two-part article on the Hollenbeck/Three-Barrel/Royal Gun Companies of Wheeling and then Moundsville, West Virginia, The Double Gun Journal, Volume Thirteen, Issues 2 and 3. I do know that Rudolf J. Kostelecky of Cantonment, Florida, had a good deal of the residue of the companies in the 1970s and 80s.

Funny how stuff happens....I just bought a very intriguing 10ga today....."The Hollenbeck by Syracuse Arms".....jives nice with this thread. I will try to get pictures in the next few days. I cant get over the wood treatment, inlays, engraving, etc. I've seen a handful of Syracuse Arms guns before today but nothing like this one. The gun spent it's lifetime in Syracuse until today when it went 35 miles East.

tjw