AH Fox info. needed

[Gary Cripps]

Just looked at an A H Fox serial number 2694. It is a 12 ga. with 30 inch barrels. It is marked with an A on the frame flat.
When was this made? This serial number does not fit in any of the serial number series I found.

[Daryl Corona]

Try AHFCA.org, the Fox site. It's an early A grade for which there are no records. As far as build date I'm sure Dave Noreen (Researcher) will chime in as he keeps tabs on this type of data.

Post pics if you can as they are great guns with above average fit and finish. I have one also with a 4 digit s/n.

[Gary Cripps]

Thanks It's going to be the only gun on an auction next week. Couldn't take pictures.

[Steve Cambria]

Dave will surely give me 20 lashes but if I had to pin the tail on a calendar, I'd say it would read 1907ish. Ansley was shipping guns in the back half of '05 but production numbers weren't anything to write home about. Remember too, that unlike Parkers, Fox serial #'s do not sequentially correlate to ship dates. Often, on a page of ten production cards we'll see a 2-3 year span on ship dates, sometimes more. That's an early gun and most likely built like a Panzer tank!!

[Dave Noreen]

The present working theory is that 12-gauge frames with serial numbers from 1 to 3000 were made at or at least serial numbered for the original A.H. Fox Gun Co. factory at Wayne & Bristol Streets, 1905-06. At the end of 1906, the A.H. Fox Gun Co. moved into the factory at North 18th Street and Windrim Avenue that was built in late 1903 for the Philadelphia Arms Co.

From fifty plus years of observation it appears they skipped four thousand serial numbers and the next batch of 12-gauge frames were serial numbered from 7000 up. Some of those frame from 1 to 3000 were assembled into finished guns later at North 18th Street & Windrim Avenue. The very earliest guns from Wayne & Bristol Streets have only one patent date on the watertable --

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Not too far into things they moved to a three patent date roll-stamp --

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And, here is an example of an early frame finished much later with a later patent date roll-stamp --

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The 1902 and 1904 patent dates were actually Philadelphia Arms Co. patents. Guess they figured that now they owned them they should stamp them on their guns whether they applied or not?!?

Only about ten production cards survive for graded 12-gauge Ansley H. Fox doubles below 9640 and they are primarily for salesman sample cut-aways. So, we are on our own for assessing guns below that serial number.