AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Antique Gun Collecting => Topic started by: Dietle on July 13, 2025, 02:21:12 AM
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I just ran across this ad in the April 18, 1844 issue of the “Jeffersonian Republican” (Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania). I am shocked that “300 good seasoned Maple Gun stocks” were being sold at T. J. Albright’s May 7, 1844 auction. That’s a whole bunch of gun stocks!
(https://i.ibb.co/5g5swYny/Jeffersonian-Republican-volume-April-18-1844.png) (https://ibb.co/cSN2VbCH)
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:o :o interesting. Thanks for posting.
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Yes, it would be fun to know what they sold for. :)
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Yes, it would be fun to know what they sold for. :)
Yeah, where are the results? I bet they did not have a 30 percent premium added, :)
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Never mind just the gunstocks, that would have been one heck of an auction by present-day standards. Concerning auction fees, I wonder what was common practice at the time. Assuming the sale was conducted by a professional, there had to have been some kind of fee but as stated, it likely wasn't the 30% that seems to be about standard these days.
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Assuming the sale was conducted by a professional, there had to have been some kind of fee but as stated, it likely wasn't the 30% that seems to be about standard these days.
I don't know whether an auctioneer's fee, at this time, depended on the value of the items sold. I think they may have received just a flat fee for their service.
When William Henry descendants sold his home in Lancaster in 1809, the auctioneer received $4.00 for "crying the sale of the House & Lot of the late Wm Henry Esq.” The Henrys preserved the receipt, as well as a receipt for the cost of a jury ($10.00) that had to inquire into how Henry's property should be disposed, since he died without a will. It never occurred to me, to be honest, that the auctioneer's fee depended on the sale price of the property. (The receipt doesn't indicate any calculations to that effect.)
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BTW, the Henrys and Albrights--who had been associated since the early 1770s (when William Henry II apprenticed to Andreas Albrecht) and later after Henry Albright's daughter married William Henry III--stayed in touch via letters throughout the nineteenth century.
In 1885, James Henry wrote to another family member: "I am just now endeavoring to entertain Tho. J. Albright who lives at the Water-Gap with his daughter Maryann. He is without the least doubt an extraordinary oddity, and excels all oddities I am at present acquainted with."
I wonder what was so odd about him?!?