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At the risk of having my ignorance so publicly proclaimed. Can this be an honest unmolested correct carbine?
Len
Just a quick look…the wood does not match in condition or color. Flag to me. Peter
I’m just less than a year into collecting/studying antique Winchesters so take my comments with a grain of salt.
First, I love the excellent LARGE photos. Typically, it’s difficult to tell much from the small photos listers post.
It’s a nice looking piece appearing in real nice condition for a carbine of that age. Wood is property proud of metal in all the right places.
One concern I have (and experts please chime to correct me if I’m off base) is that the stock walnut and forearm appear very different grain
patterns? Also the color of the two woods is a little off, however forearm wood will often be a little darker than the stock where held by the hand.
Shouldn’t stock and forearm wood originally be from same piece of walnut, thus well matched?
Also, antique carbine’s muzzle end are blued (not sure if post 1898 are) and this piece doesn’t seem to be.
Winchester Model 1873 44-40 circa 1886
November 7, 2015
Online
Nice looking rifle, wood does appear mis-matched but I don’t think that’s too unusual. I have a few carbines with a little bit of burl in the fore end. Appears to be an honest, well-used rifle.
I have one of these in my collection. # 1100457, PR 1-25-1936. I think these carbines were a cleanup of the old style wood when they were making the transition to the flat buttplates. Mine also has a early SRC mag. tube with the band cutout. My carbine is drippy mint and has the Winchester 22-E rear sight. Another early part. I think that carbine is fairly priced and a very hard to find Winchester. Big Larry
66m20e said
At the risk of having my ignorance so publicly proclaimed. Can this be an honest unmolested correct carbine?Len
Len,
Yes, it can be, and in my opinion, it is an honest unmolested correct “Transitional” Carbine.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
Only pictures of the one side. Wonder what the other side looks like? (Never mind, I didn’t look at all the pictures).
From what I can see, it looks all original.
Just want to be clear with my first post in this thread, and I am not wanting to start a war here. The experts have chimed in and said all is original and that the gun is a bit rare, and I will certainly accept that as gospel. When I first saw the OP, I looked and at the auction and saw the different colored/textured woods, and immediately red flagged it…for me. I don’t know enough about transitional guns and a lot of others to know if it came from factory that way or not. I do know about me though, and know that I would not do well having a gun like that in my collection, no mater if it is rare or not. I also would not want the explaining down the road of why it was that way to buyers who are most likely not aware of factory originality anyway. I would say a large % of buyers out there would look at the different colored stocks and say “that ain’t right”. A good example was our member Kevin Jones. Kevin is learning and knows more than a lot of buyers out there, but he looks at the gun and questions the originality of it. Without the help of the expert opinions here, he would have to assume “that ain’t right”, and probably stay away from it, judging by the condition of some of the guns he has purchased. I am one of those collectors that tries to collect all original, nice guns. They also have to look right, or I go crazy having them around. I look at the gun in question and see one stock as black and the other one white. Just me and my opinion of course. Peter
November 7, 2015
Online
I hope you don’t consider me one of the experts, Peter. I haven’t looked at the many thousands of Winchesters that some folks here have and I have to keep my reference library handy to verify what I thought I read. I’ve been dabbling with Winchesters for quite awhile but have only gotten serious about them in recent years. I’ve missed a few (OK, several) obvious clues even when given the opportunity to handle the gun in question. I generally don’t trust pictures but the ones of this gun seem quite good. My impression was that it was an honest gun but that’s just an opinion. My “mismatched” gun isn’t as obvious as this one but under some types of lighting it could be easier to notice. I’ve seen this characteristic on other guns that appeared to be original so it’s not an automatic red flag for me but someday I’ll probably dismiss it when I should have given it a closer look.
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