This is an 1890 catalogue illustration of the building from which was ordered John's lifter hammer gun, serial number 15678, depicted on this thread: the John P. Lovell Arms Co., of Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
That year the company was celebrating 50 years in business.
The founding Lovell was originally a gun maker, but with hand-made gun being replaced in the 19th Century by the machine-made product, the firm became a dealer in firearms and equipment for outdoorsmen.
Suggested by my reprint of the 1890 catalogue, the buyer of John’s “C”-grade 12 would have been able to choose from an inventory of shot-guns that included W & C. Scott; W. W. Greener; Bonehill; Colt; L. C. Smith; Ithaca; Harrington and Richardson; Lefever; Remington and from a number of lesser-known and in-house brands, including The Manhattan Three Barreled Gun.
John P. Lovell Arms was then selling to an expanding audience of recreational gunners and shooters, of both sexes, at a time when, according to the Introduction of my 1971 catalogue reprint, “[e]ven the factory worker , however, was afforded some time in the Fall for a small-scale hunting trip”.
__________________
"First off I scoured the Internet and this seems to be the place to be!” — Chad Whittenburg, 5-12-19
|