Fox Collectors

This is the build card I just received. I was wondering if anyone might know the significance of the small 3 in the R of rush. Seems a bit odd.
Thank You
Jim

Pretty sure no one left alive knows what those numbers, we often see in the RUSH on mostly pre WW-I cards, mean. Here are a couple more examples --

3 weight barrel??

When we see the barrel weight on a card, it is normally in the Wt. space and it is in long runs of guns being made for stock. An actual weight is written in when the gun is completed. As an example, a run of 30-inch A-Grades began with serial number 32655. From 32655 to 32684 there is a 1 in the Wt. space. From 32685 to 32723 there is a 2 in the Wt. space. From 32724 to
32744 there is a 3 in the Wt. space, and from 32745 to 32755 there is a 4 in the Wt. space.

Then they go to 32-inch with a 1 in the weight space. Prior to this 30-inch run, 32601 to 32653 were all 28-inch A-Grades with 4 in the Wt. space.

Very interesting, Dave. Jim

Wow thats a neat pattern you picked up on, must of looked at tons of cards. Thank you for that info. The barrels on the 20211 card are #1 weight.
Jim

I never noticed the "1" on this RUSH card until today.

I will offer a WAG with no proof what-so-ever except it seems plausible. Since the early guns were bench made (I presume) and the numbers shown are all low numbers could it be the bench or gunmaker assignment. It would seem as soon as an order is taken and card filled out it wold need to assigned to an employee to at least begin the primary assembly? The boss completing the card would be controlling the flow and allocation of guns made among the makers. As Dave said we will never know.

Dave do these numbers show up for both guns that were ordered and those made for stock?
Jim

Good theory. Im showing a 6 in mine.

One more with a number.

My 20 g CE