New CHE on the Way

[ArtS]

Originally Posted by Drew Hause

Odd that Walter Clark ordered the gun in February, then had it shipped to Cleveland Cartridge Co. Cleveland was a major promoter of trap shooting.
The 1904 GAH was in June in Indianapolis and Cleveland supplied the traps. I didn't find Clark in the list of competitors
https://digital.la84.org/digital/col.../37904/rec/115
nor was he listed in 1905
https://digital.la84.org/digital/col.../37132/rec/124

Found this re his father:
Hugh G. Clark was in business in Omaha from 1876 till his death in December, 1892. Beginning in 1876, he was in the general merchandise business until 1884, when he sold out, retaining the agency for various powder and dynamite companies only, which of late years has developed into a large business itself. In connection with a branch, conducted by his son, in Denver, Mr. Clark's business extended as far west as Nevada, and north to Montana.

According to the letter, Clark had it shipped to the attention of "Morrie". Don't know if it was their gun or he was in charge of receiving special orders.

[Randy Roberts]

Art, I have a CHE 2 years younger than yours that is a factory safety delete gun. I have noticed that the engraving over the safety slot in your gun is a fair amount more elaborate than mine as you can see. Nice find on your part.

[Mills]

I have a C top lever 10 gauge with 31 inch barrels which handles very well

[ArtS]

Originally Posted by Mills Morrison

I have a C top lever 10 gauge with 31 inch barrels which handles very well

I tabulated all these the other night, and if I am not mistaken, that would be the only C Grade 10 ga 31" barreled gun ever made. It has Bernard barrels, correct?

[Mills]

Originally Posted by Arthur Shaffer

I tabulated all these the other night, and if I am not mistaken, that would be the only C Grade 10 ga 31" barreled gun ever made. It has Bernard barrels, correct?

You are correct and that is the one

[ArtS]

Originally Posted by Mills Morrison

You are correct and that is the one

There are twice as many of mine than yours. I have a 25" GH Damascus that there were 3 made. They are almost a dime a dozen.

[David Noble]

Originally Posted by Arthur Shaffer

I purchased a CHE on GB for too much this weekend, but it was an interesting gun.

Art, why do you feel you paid too much for that gun? Seems like a very fair deal to me.

[Brush Buster]

Once upon a time ,I owned 106312 , DH ,28 Gauge Titanic Steel 25" Barreled gun The only one made ! I used it as part of the deal when I bought my 410 ! I bought it through Chuck Brunner and he warned me more than once I would regret trading it and kept asking me if I was sure ,I was , but again Chuck was spot on ,it is the gun I parted with along the way I regret the most ! It was an early O Frame and I owned a DHE OO Frame at the time so I figured I was good but , sadly the O Framed gun was the gun to keep , I loved carrying it and it was very unique ! The SAD TRUTH you just can't own them all !!!!

[ArtS]

I may be misunderstanding what you are saying, but it seems you are saying the known records were tabulated and then scaled up (extrapolated) to allow for a proportional increase in all the categories in the tabulation. That means the tabulation in TPS was over reported (above what the records revealed), not under reported. For instance, if 20% of the records were missing and they tabulated 4 guns of a certain specification, then the count in the book would have been listed as 5. So a 1 of 5 gun may have been really a 1 of 4 gun. Or a 1 of 6 gun. No one can really say. What you can say is that it is very rare. The other fact is that if, for instance, only 1 or 2 guns of a specification were found in 80% of the records, there is a better than average chance that no more were made in the smaller number of lost records. Additionally, the scaling could be right or wrong depending on what is being considered. For instance, there may have been more or less records lost during the time Bernard barrels were used vs Parker Special. A different scaling factor would have been required for each specification and time period.

I have never heard any mention of extrapolation, but I am surprised it was done. I always assumed that everyone realized it was a count from the known records and that some of them are missing. Generating biased data doesn't seem something that would have been really helpful.

In the case of rare specifications, it really doesn't change much. Unless the majority of the records are missing, the number doesn't even change. Extrapolating the number of 1 or 2 guns will still round off to 1 or 2. For 3 or 4 guns it may round off to 4 or 5. I think it is very, very unlikely that the records show only 1 or 2 guns of a certain specification and then a search of the lost records turn up a batch of 50 of them. They are rare for a reason in the existing records. I think everyone knows that the records are not perfect. There are many known instances where the records are simply wrong based on the gun as found. The only baseline we have to use as a measure of rarity is the tabulation published in TPS and will not change barring a finding of the missing records.

A good question is: how many guns are missing from the records vs the serial numbers used? We all know the serialization book is incomplete compared to the known records due to leaving out the many of the lower grade guns during certain periods. However, we know what serial numbers are recorded in the order books and we know there is an accepted total number of serial numbers, so how much was this "extrapolation"?

[Cold Spring]

Art, I'm happy that worked out so well for you. I'd been watching your new CHE on GB and had my finger on the bid tab several times as it timed out but in the end relied on that goofy description and decided I didn't want another project gun. Otherwise we might have gotten into a bidding war. Again, happy for you.