Can someone expound a little on what a trade rifle is, compared to the normal mass-produced, artificially striped Leman rifle? In going through the complete auction catalog, it seems just about any and every Leman rifle, except perhaps a very fancy early rifle in curly maple, is a "trade rifle," and most were supposedly earmarked for Indian use. Also wondering about all the "Chief grade" rifles in the auction. I thought most of those had the small silver bust of an Indian on the thumb piece, or doesn't that apply to Leman rifles? Are there period written descriptions or government order specifications of what a chief's grade rifle was supposed to be, so identifying one is relatively easy?
It would be helpful if someone who is knowledgeable about these "trade rifles" could give the rest of us longrifle collectors a better understanding of what a trade rifle really is, and how to identify it from other period rifles of average workmanship like most Leman rifles generally were. I'm a lot like Shreckmeister, not real excited about them, but I would like to better understand them, and perhaps better appreciate them. But don't worry, I still won't bid on them!
Thanks,
Shelby Gallien
Shelby,
As several posts have pointed out, "trade rifle" is an oft used and frequently abused term. Taken out of context, it is an overly general term that could mean, a "fur trade rifle" (a fairly general term in itself), an "Indian trade rifle", a "Rocky Mountain fur trade rifle, or a "civilian trade rifle" such as those sold in hardware stores as Daryl mentioned.
It helps to look at the context in which the term is being used to see the more specific meaning. In the case of the Larry Ness collection being sold at the Cowan's auction, they are primarily using the term to mean an "Indian trade rifle."
Of course, they are also stretching the use of the term in some instances like some collectors and most auction houses tend to do in applying it to rifles that likely had no connection to the Indian trade or the general fur trade.
Shelby, you asked specifically about Leman "trade rifles", so I will focus most of my comments on that subject.
You request, "It would be helpful if someone who is knowledgeable about these "trade rifles" could give the rest of us longrifle collectors a better understanding of what a trade rifle really is, and how to identify it from other period rifles of average workmanship.
As Robert (RAT) mentioned in his post, "a 'trade' rifle (or 'Indian trade' rifle) is one that was made to a set pattern as specified by a trading company." This statement can apply to rifles as well as smoothbore Indian trade guns. These rifles (or smoothbore guns) have distinguishable characteristics that set them apart from the rifles made for the civilian market. In the 19th century, there was one English made rifle (Shumway's Type D), three patterns of rifles made by J. Joseph Henry, and one recognizable pattern made by Henry Leman that were specifically made for the Indian trade. There were other gunmakers that made rifles for the US government factories (trading posts), treaty annuity payments, and presents, but there is no evidence that these rifles were significantly different from the rifles these same gunmakers made for the civilian market.
I posted my thoughts on "What Constitutes a Trade Gun and a Trade Rifle?" on another forum.
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/what-constitutes-a-trade-gun-and-a-trade-rifle.120821/#post-1654703To summarize that piece:
- The first aspect is that the firearm has to appear in the archeological and/or archival record in significant quantity.
- Second, it has to have a fairly wide geographic distribution.
- Third, and most importantly, it has to have unique or identifiable characteristics.
These criteria are meant to distinguish Indian trade guns/rifles from civilian guns/rifles that were occasionally traded to Indians.
To clarify this point, Andreas Albrecht, and later Christian Oerter, are known to have made rifles for Indians as recorded in documents that have been preserved in the archives of the Moravian Church. These rifles were likely little different from rifles made for their civilian customers. Knowing these facts, I don't think anyone would consider the Edward Marshall rifle, which has been attributed to Andreas Albrecht, as an Indian trade rifle. The same goes for any of the surviving rifles made by Christian Oerter. On the other end of the spectrum, it is known that many Plains Indians used 1860 Henry rifles as well as Winchester 1866 rifles during the Plains Indian Wars of the 1870s. No one would refer to those lever action rifles as Indian trade rifles. They were meant for a much larger civilian market.
These may be extreme examples and there are some guns that tend to fall into grey zones between being an Indian trade gun/rifle or a civilian gun/rifle. Sometimes it's hard to draw a clear line of demarcation.
Back to Leman rifles, there is one pattern of Leman rifle that has long been considered as an Indian trade rifle.
After the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the defeat and annihilation of Custer's command, there were understandably a number of Federal investigations. One of the areas of interest was a determination of the types of arms the Northern Plains Indians were using at that time. Congress asked that a report be submitted on arms that were captured from or surrendered by mostly Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in 1877.
A total of 410 arms were detailed by the Ordnance Department of which 284 were shoulder arms. Of these, 160 were muzzleloaders. These muzzleloaders were comprised of 94 Leman rifles, 10 by J. P. Lower of Philadelphia, 6 by Hawken, 6 by J. Henry & Son, 4 by Henry Folsom & Co. of St. Louis, 1 by Pennsylvania Rifle Works, 1 by Beaurvais of St. Louis, and the remaining by lessor-known makers.
Some of these firearms ended up in the collection of the United States Cartridge Company. A catalog of their collection was published in 1903 and a copy of it is available in digital form on the internet.
http://www.survivorlibrary.com/library/illustrated_catalogue_of_united_states_cartridge_companys_collection_of_firearms_1903.pdfPages 84 and 85 from the US Cartridge Company Collection Catalog are shown below.
Catalog Item 319 in the images above is now in the Museum of the Fur Trade collection. It was documented by James Hanson and published in
The Museum Of The Fur Trade Quarterly Vol. 7, No. 2, Summer 1971, page 9. Below are scans of of that brief article.
The rifle was also published in Hanson's
Firearms of the Fur Trade page 435.
A couple other pages (86 and 87) from the US Cartridge Company Collection Catalog are shown below.
These Leman Indian Rifles have been know to collectors for almost a hundred years. John Dillin included this photo of some of the rifles from the US Cartridge Company collection in his book,
The Kentucky Rifle, plate 101, that was first published in 1924.
Charles E. Hanson mentioned them in his 1956 book,
The Northwest Gun, and again in his 1960
Plains Rifle. They have also been covered in just about every book on fur trade and Indian guns since.
The distinguishing characteristics for this model of Leman's Indian rifle are:
- Short barrel, around 32 inches long but sometimes an inch or more shorter
- Full stock, often with artificial stripes
- Percussion ignition
- Later models usually have a lock with a clipped or square tail
- Large caliber between .50 and .54
- Classic Leman mounts with fleur-de-lis cap box and distinctive Leman trigger guard
- Mounts are normally brass, but iron butt plates are not uncommon
- Single trigger
- Ramrod thimbles are smooth with wriggle engraving at the ends rather than ribbed thimbles seen on some flintlock rifles
- Wriggle engraving can also be present on the back end of the muzzle cap and on the barrel at various places
It's not known when Leman started making this short barrel model. It could date to the Buffalo Robe Trade Period (1840 to 1860s), but it was probably the later part of the period when the Indians were comfortable with using percussion rifles.
I'm not sure if all of the 94 Leman rifles captured and surrendered by the Sioux and Cheyenne in 1877 were of the short barrel pattern, but all were reported to be percussion. All 10 of the Leman rifles in the US Cartridge Company collection were the short barrel pattern, and they probably represented the bulk of the original 94 rifles.
It's worth pointing out that the Chief's grade rifle that WESTbury started this thread with has all the architecture and mounts, including the fleur-de-lis cap box that Leman is best known for, and the date on the lock is 1840. There are more than one of these flintlock Leman rifles with the 1840 date on the lock.
Leman started his own business in 1834, so within six years he had developed his distinctive mounts including the fleur-de-lis cap box.
Jack Brooks made a bench copy of one of these Leman Indian rifles from a local collection. It has a 32 inch barrel in .54 caliber. Jack made molds of all the mounts and of the lock and internal parts. Three samples of Jack's rifle are shown below.
The original rifle that Jack Brooks copied.
Leman made civilian percussion rifles that are in many ways similar to this Indian rifle pattern. The civilian rifles generally have longer barrels and often smaller caliber.
