SBT “B” grade?

[Pa SxS]

Interesting gun. It's just a guess but I think the "B" and "5" were stamped over a "C" and "4". The stamps just don't look right. The stock is definitely a "C" grade stock.

Unfortunately both the Order Book and Stock Book don't define what grade or barrel steel this gun was. The Order Book just shows the price of $150 which was the standard price of SC SBT's in that time frame. The Stock Book just says "Trap". In later years it would have shown "Trap 4" in the ledger for an SC or Trap 5 for a SB. Also the barrel steel is not noted. Perhaps I should have said in the letter that the grade and barrel steel could not be determined by the records but since I knew that some real early SBT's had Titanic steel until Acme steel was introduced, I decided to write the letter as a SB grade gun.