Post by Bill on Feb 3, 2012 9:33:04 GMT -5
Just before the first of the year I picked up a Springfield Trapdoor Carbine in .45-70 for the store. Pretty nice rifle with good bore. The book said it should of had a stacking swivel and someone had cut off the saddle ring. I thought well Ok, its still a nice old rifle and the guy wasn't totally outrages in his price so I bought it to resell and thought to myself Wow this is going to be a tough one.
When I had time I started researching it as bells kept going off whenever I picked it up.
First think I found when I did a search on google was the serial number. It fell right in the middle of the Custer battle field guns. Wow big bump but nothing for sure.
Then I found it was very common for the Cavalry to cut off the saddle ring and use a leather holster that mounted on the saddle to hold the rifle as it was quieter and didn't do the jingle jangle jingle.
Then I found that they only put stacking swivels on for one year (one of my info sources sure blew that one)
Well a guy came in and looked at it and then the next day right before Christmas his wife came in and put it on layaway.
Never thought much about it after that.
Well the guy and his family came in and paid it off yesterday. When walking him out I mentioned that I had done a lot of research on the gun and thought it to be a very interesting gun but could not find out much more than I had stated already but thought it probably had a greater value that he had paid for it.
His next comment blew me away. He said that yes it did, the last one he bought he paid $5000 for it and this one was better and that most likely it was a battlefield pickup by an Indian or belonged to a deserter. Even more interesting was the fact that it was still in SD. So his best guess was it was a battle field pickup by an Indian as if the military had picked it up it would of been sent back and refinished and reissued and some record of it would of showed up.
He does a huge amount of research on these guns, especially if they show up in SD because that was where a lot of the battles were and found it very interesting where it showed back up which is in the Black Hills area.
Man I could of spent years researching that gun. Very Very interesting.
When I had time I started researching it as bells kept going off whenever I picked it up.
First think I found when I did a search on google was the serial number. It fell right in the middle of the Custer battle field guns. Wow big bump but nothing for sure.
Then I found it was very common for the Cavalry to cut off the saddle ring and use a leather holster that mounted on the saddle to hold the rifle as it was quieter and didn't do the jingle jangle jingle.
Then I found that they only put stacking swivels on for one year (one of my info sources sure blew that one)
Well a guy came in and looked at it and then the next day right before Christmas his wife came in and put it on layaway.
Never thought much about it after that.
Well the guy and his family came in and paid it off yesterday. When walking him out I mentioned that I had done a lot of research on the gun and thought it to be a very interesting gun but could not find out much more than I had stated already but thought it probably had a greater value that he had paid for it.
His next comment blew me away. He said that yes it did, the last one he bought he paid $5000 for it and this one was better and that most likely it was a battlefield pickup by an Indian or belonged to a deserter. Even more interesting was the fact that it was still in SD. So his best guess was it was a battle field pickup by an Indian as if the military had picked it up it would of been sent back and refinished and reissued and some record of it would of showed up.
He does a huge amount of research on these guns, especially if they show up in SD because that was where a lot of the battles were and found it very interesting where it showed back up which is in the Black Hills area.
Man I could of spent years researching that gun. Very Very interesting.
