The fellow I got this Smith from has a bunch of stuff he "says" he wants to sell . Including some Parkers and more Smiths . I am hoping he'll have a decent Parker 10 I can acquire at a decent but fair price .

He brought this one in yesterday with a bunch of other stuff that "his son" he said hadn't taken care of .

He claims to have about 80 Lugers he wants us to move for him . Not exactly my thing but I wouldn't mnd a decent DWM from the WWI time period for my father .

He brought in what would have been a really nice Browning Safari on the FN action in 7mm Rem Mag . But by the time he got it to us the rust was a bit much !

This Smith was sitting in the rack and at first i thought it was just a 12 . He also brought in a old "Sloan's Spanish" 10 gauge in pretty sad shape . I was messing with that thinking I might be able to salvage it for some buckshot or whatever . And then I got to looking at the Smith and the Sloan gun was cast aside !

Okay i just reviewed the Blue Book and it says ,

Quality 0 started in 1895

Quality 1 started in 1892

So as you said mine has to be Quality 2 !

I am glad to see the prices for the three grades in this book are pretty much the same so atleast I didn't screw the guy !

Very nice! I wonder if this is an actual 'Lyman Cornelius Smith' gun. I believe that was about the time he sold out and moved on to typewriters and such.

Grade 0 and 1 were made by LC Smith in Fulton NY, your gun proceeds that period it is Syracuse NY produced and it is a QUALITY 2 gun not a GRADE 2 Fulton produced gun. The grade numbering system changed after the company moved to Fulton. The Blue Book must only list Fulton era guns.

Nope it lists both .

And you are correct it says Quality 2 .

According to the "Blue Book" the gun I have seriel numbers to 1890 , but when one reads deeper into the "Syracuse Style" guns it say by seriel number this gun was most likely made in Fulton also .

It also shows the "Quality 0 and 1" in the same 1886-1895 grouping .

The Blue Book says ;

Syracuse guns seriel number;
16,000-16,999
18,000-20,999
22,000-23,500

And Fulton guns ;
30,000-40-334

It calls all of these as "Syracuse style guns" .

To further in this grouping they show

Quality 0 new 1895
Quality 1 new 1892
Quality 2
Quality 3
down to Quality 7

They also say Quality 4-7 a total of 550 produced .

The Blue Book also claims they made some 8 gauge guns from 1892-1913 I'd be intrested to know approx how many of those they produced !

Not many 8's. I think 23?

Well that settles it !

I'll most likely never get a Parker 8 gauge hammerless , looks about 99.9% sure thing I'll never get a LC Smith 8 gauge and about 2000% that I'll never get a Colt 1883 8 gauge :crying:

i know that there was over32 of the lc smith 8 ga made but i bet the number is even higher...charlie

Eight gauge Parkers are not hard to find, they are only hard to pay for. Smith eights are hard to find and hard to pay for.