Pure numbers

[jwh1947]

Someone asked an out-of-line question a while back on the site, regarding how much his rifle was worth.  It was inappropriate, as it is not our place or function to appraise individuals' guns sight unseen.  This would be pure folly and would likely lead to misuse of misguided info.  But, on the other hand, I was prompted to try something new.  If I was a newcomer and went to my computer to buy a rifle, what would I spend?

First, there were no good carved guns for sale, that I saw. There appeared to be one decent one on a private website, but the guy must have been smoking opium prior to coming up with the price.  The quoted figure was that hilarious. 

As for uncarved guns, there was a nice one on the CLA site and several really decent ones on private sites.  Good patchboxes, not bad wood, and nice, likely correct, locks.  I saw one on  Gunbroker that I actually liked.  It was OK, and if I was looking for guns, I'd inquire.  Found some at local auctions, yet unsold, as I said in other posts.

Now here's what I found.  Dispute it if you wish, because my facts are purely empirical, based on my own observations.  Average price of a good period rifle with patchbox and signed, no buttstock carving, available now to the world, $3572.  Average price of rifle with pathbox, unsigned, no carving, $1982.  Average price full stock rifle without patchbox or signature, $ 700.   So there you have it folks, a barometer based on  my own database and disputable by anyone with an 80 IQ and a computer.

My average is the mean. N 15, give or less. Standard deviation tight.  JWH

[mbriggs]

I sure wish I could find and purchase North Carolina Longrifles that cheap. (Smile)

Michael

[JTR]

Patchbox, signed and uncarved for $3572, I'll take all the Nicolas Hawk rifles you care to send my way! 

But actually the price average you came up with might not be that far off. Earlier this year, wasn't it the Morphy auction that sold off 200 rifles in one session? Averaging the prices from that auction would be interesting.

John

[jwh1947]

Funny thing you mention the auction prices.  I did average them and the numbers are actually lower than reported above, if you eliminate the top and bottom 10 examples and focus on the remaining bell curve, lots of signed specimens with boxes went for under $2000.  

Ever notice that the focus of our collecting interests works on what I call the "star system"?  Crude analogies abound.  There were quite a few noteworthy Elizabethan writers in England, but Shakespeare gets most of the star billing.  There were quite a few accomplished "Dutch Masters" but Rembrandt gets the star billing.  Let's not even mention pop culture, where the bizarre and profane get more print than pure talent.  

So it is with rifles.  Once they get written up by a gun writer of note, interest skyrockets and the maker is on his way to becoming a posthumous star.  Certainly, one does not emerge a grand master if he put out shoddy work, but when you get to the upper half of the spectrum there's a lot of noble work out there.

Certainly names like Kuntz and Beck are properly regarded as great builders, but ranking some of the "lesser stars"  is purely a matter of taste and opinion.  May sound purely mercenary, but want to raise the price of your favorite gun builder's work?  Have a so-called expert put out a book featuring your maker.  The specimens don't change one bit, but popular perspective of them does.

On a broader discussion, what would be of use would be a book wherein a university trained researcher, totally disinterested (not uninterested), would approach this series of related questions.  Where were the first American rifles built?  By whom?   How do we know?  I mean really flesh out the earliest days with documentation.  Then, more importantly, examine the actual industrial development in each region and interpret the economic impact that it had.  We know where the basic centers were; let's really analyze them.  They could then be compared on an even plane and their relative importance discussed intelligently. This is not going to be done overnight and at no expense.  We need a true archaeological dig, if you will, and I don't mean listening to a Virginian tell us the first ones were made there while two Pa. Dutchmen totally dismiss him and seek to brawl over Christian Springs vs. Lancaster.  Let's get over the wishful bickering, provincial bias, and speculative source material and really look at it systematically.  Dillin, Kindig, Kauffman and Shumway built the foundation of the road; none of them ever said they were writing the last word; as a matter of fact, theirs are some of the first words.  I envision a treatise with analyses of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina work, just for starters. And what would make this novel would be the presence of thorough documentation, professional rigor and peer review.  Have at it youngsters; here's the base for a Ph.D. dissertation in either American Studies or Colonial History.    

 

[flintriflesmith]

First American rifles or first rifles built in America?

Would "rifles built is America" include rifles stocked here using parts salvaged from European rifles?

Before any serious research could be undertaken and/or published these and dozens of other questions need to be asked and answered. The answers would guide the disinterested researcher--other wise they would wander forever in the land of historic records without ever knowing the significance of what they were finding.

Time to start a new thread or perhaps a new forum within ALR?

Gary

[mr. no gold]

Wayne's proposal actually falls under the ruberic of Industrial Archaeology and this is long overdue for cottage industries of the Colonial and early Federal periods. There are at least two consulting firms in the East who specialize in research and excavation of such sites. To my knowledge, no one has done a gun maker study, however.
The website for ACCRA poses questions by researchers about artifacts recovered during excavations at fort sites and other locations, but these are always incidental to other matters involving the total project. And, the archaeologists seldom know what they are looking at, being mostly students workers.
There is no limit to the scope of the Research Design and the questions that could (and need) to be answered. Our knowledge of the lives of the olde gun builders is woefully scant other than what written words have been handed down. Excavations of dumps, privy pits, out building foundations and house remains as well as yardscape, done on a scientific basis would yield an abundance of information (and more questions, always more questions!). When the historical research is added into the data base, we may be very surprised over what we have learned.
If anyone would like to discuss this toward putting something together, I would be delighted to help. I am an archaeologist, but no longer practice. Too old for it. Can't give it up completely though.
Regards-Dick 

[jwh1947]

Mr NoGold...thanks for the comforting signs from someone who is exactly on beam with my current thinking.  To answer your question, yes, address both European parts assembly and the evolution of the cottage industry of rifle making from parts made here...both.  My hypothesis:  our story is going to begin in Virginia with assemblys using European stock and repairing the ones that were obviously brought to Jamestown.  The Virginia story only begins there, but the mushrooming of the cottage industry moves north to my stompin' grounds, and then blossoms out, like a shooting star in the annals of history, to many parts.  I want the first 50 years to be put into correct perspective, as you seem to want.  I'm telling you, all we need is a grad student with an interest in this stuff to put it all together.  Right now I'm too busy catching late-season trout over the dew at sunrise.  My ancestors called it the will-o'-the-wisp and fairys and trolls lurk there.  You think I'm nuts?  I plead innocence due to genetics.  JWH

[Stophel]

It's probably been four years since I've been, but I have seen several good guns at the big Louisville Gun Show.  The last one I went to, I could have bought a late Moll rifle that the guy had $2100 on.  I had $1900 on me (more than I probably have ever had at one time before...or since) and almost offered it to him.  The gun was sanded down, but not too badly, and had definite remnants of painted on curl.  I have seen a really nice GOOD condition plain Lehigh gun of the Rupp/Kuntz variety, $3500, a super condition eastern Berks county gun with red varnish for about the same (In fact, I am still not convinced that this was an old gun, but maybe a Kettenburg gun...the dealer was either busy, or not at the table when I was looking at it, and didn't ask).  A signed Andrew Kopp, fully relief carved, not sanded down, but well worn.  Old blackened varnish, barrel cut down and per-cussed.  $1900.  A signed Zorger fowling gun, rather plain, and HEAVILY sanded down, you could barely see a little carving around the nose of the comb, $1600.  A fine Hess-type gun (unsigned) for $3,000. etc.

I also have seen one nice big Hudson Valley fowler priced at $10,600.  Rather early, and apparently maple stocked.  Iron mounted, and frankly, I wondered even at the time if it was actually made in New York, or in Holland...  By the way, unless you have actually seen one of these things first hand, you cannot grasp the absolute magnitude of the mass of such a gun.  Pictures cannot relay just how huge the buttplate is...

My little plain cherry fullstocked New England rifle cost me $875 including shipping from John Gunderson.  He often has some nicer ones with wirework in the $1200 range.  I think right now he has a heavy Berks county bench rifle...

German guns are cheaper, naturally.  My nicest one cost me $850, though I think normally it would sell for at least $1500, considering that it is in original flint.  Most normal grade German guns and rifles I see (usually converted) are in the $1200 range.  I saw a nice Wender, super nice, but not pristine, at the last show, and the guy had $7000 on it.

If I see a gun that does not have a price tag, I do NOT ask.  If there's no price, they obviously don't want to sell it.