Baker Question.....
 

I don't know much about Baker guns, but am looking at one that's supposedly a Baker thought it's marked with a store name. All the ones I've seen have been sidelock guns but this one is a boxlock. Did Baker ever make one?


DLH

Yes I seem to remember seeing something about a boxlock gun .

must be

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vie...Item=391581005

the box lock bears a resemblance to the Syracuse boxlock guns

found this from a search

http://www.bakercollectors.com/index...the-Baker-Guns

"The Batavia 'C' grade was a hammerless boxlock, and the first of the Batavia grades."

Here is one that I own in 10g with 32" Damascus marked with Montgomery Ward on the top rib.

Attachment 30870

It has birds on the sides with line and light scroll and a dog on the bottom. Ebony inlay in the forend. Box Lock, but it uses the same cocking and bolting mechanism as the sidekick guns.

The Baker Gun & Forging Co.'s first entry into the low priced field was their box lock Batavia Hammerless --

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...Hammerless.jpg

which was for a time listed as the C-Grade. A lot of these box lock Bakers/Batavias were marked New Era --

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...NewEra25x7.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...NewEra15x7.jpg

and sold by The Fair in Chicago. These guns resemble Syracuse Arms Co. doubles because Frank A. Hollenbeck was the Superintendant of Baker Gun & Forging Co. 1889 to 1893, when he left to form Syracuse Arms Co. But, they have the narrower Baker barrel lug, not the 5/8 inch wide lug of Frank's Syracuse Arms Co., Baltimore Arms Co, and Hollenbeck/Three-Barrel/Royal Gun Co. firearms.

Just to muddy the waters, there was a much later Baker boxlock with the bolting of the later Paragons and above --

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps5c9a383e.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psf2fc04db.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps440717da.jpg

None of the Baker or H & D Folsom paper in my collection of old catalogues shows this gun.

Did Montgumery Wadrs Offer an 8ga. I guess they sold everything.

Now those bakers aren't related to the lc smith baker gun correct ?

http://www.gunsinternational.com/L-C...n_id=100392732

same Baker


"1877 Formed the firm W. H. Baker & Co. with finacial input from L. C. Smith and moved to Syracuse, NY. Using patent 199,773 these guns were marketed,after 1880, as "L. C. Smith Maker The Baker Gun Syracuse N. Y." This double gun was produced until 1882 or 1883 when it was replaced by the L. C. Smith Co. gun designed by Alexander Brown. The three barrel gun was continued into the later 1880s."

Many of these gun designers/builders crossed paths several times during their careers.

William H. Baker left Syracuse and L.C. Smith with some of Smith's relatives and George Livermore and went down to Ithaca and started a new gun factory run by water power from Fall Creek, and the first gun Ithaca Gun Co. produced was a Baker designed box frame hammer double with conventional top lever. William H. Baker left Ithaca and returned to Syracuse where his brother Ellis had founded the Syracuse Forging Co. They soon began making a trigger-plate hammer double of A.C. McFarland design, Patent No. 370,966 and the company became the Syracuse Forging & Gun Co. In 1888 the factory burned and they relocated to Batavia, NY, but by this time William H. Baker was ill with TB and Ellis brought in Frank A. Hollenbeck to be plant superintendant. Shortly after the move to Batavia, the company name was changed to Baker Gun & Forging Co.

Back in the 1870s, Frank A. Hollenbeck had worked with William H. Baker on Baker's trigger-break three-barrel and double guns in Lisle, NY, before William H. Baker hooked up with L.C. Smith and moved to Syracuse. After Baker moved to Syracuse with L.C. Smith, Hollenbeck built some hammer doubles of his own in Lisle with a third trigger break in the front of the trigger guard to open the guns.

While L.C. Smith and Ithaca Gun Co. built guns of William H. Baker's design, the Baker Gun & Forging Co. never built a gun of William H. Baker's design.

Thanks guys! The price is too high obviously, but I like the gun a lot. We'll see what happens......

DLH