June 25-28, 2018 Firearms
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/25/2018
Round barrel with full magazine. Forearm cap blued which retains a sling swivel as does bottom of the stock. Receiver is blued, dust cover is blued, and loading gate is a bright nitre blue. Case colored hammer, lever and trigger. Mounted with a straight grain American walnut. Upper tang is sporting a thick base long range veneer tang sight. Buttplate is case colored and retains no cleaning rods behind trap door. No caliber markings on barrel and no caliber markings on carrier lifter. Front sight is of the German silver variety with a short early acorn type rear barrel sight. Screw heads look to remain untouched with majority of case color still present on the screw heads. Lower tang fits receiver very fine. Set trigger functions properly. Round barrel retains 95-97% original blue. Magazine 96-98% blue with a few light scratches on bottom of tube. Forearm cap is 97% bright blue. Receiver is 95-96% original blue, 85-95% on right side with the side plate showing some patina underneath the blue. Hammer retains 90% case color, lever is 40-60% case color with balance turning a medium to dark patina. Trigger looks to be of a blue variety and retains 90-95% blue. Lower tang 90-95% bright blue. Straight grain American wood with few surface scratches and a few compressions on left side and a dark bruise on right side in middle of stock with some smaller compression otherwise, also retains a few light scratches. No wood missing around upper or lower tang, no cracks evident. Buttplate retains a good strong 80-90% strong case colors with the balance mellowing out. Bore is good with strong rifling and no surface pitting. Cycles properly and mechanics are fine. Absolutely an astounding example of the First Model 1873 Winchester rifle. From the Ray Bentley Collection.