Was Sears, Roebuck & Co in Chicago, Illinois a somewhat common shipping destination circa 1900 for slower selling top break revolvers in the what we now refer to as the antique pre 1899 category of revolvers? Such as slower selling, at that time, models, such as the .44 Double Action Frontier Model? Hypothesis: Sears, Roebuck & Co purchased these in bulk, paying full or possibly discounted prices, for nationwide distribution by mail order through their catalogue.

My .44 DA Frontier was shipped to Montgomery Wards in Chicago on 12/31/1900.
It was purchased (mail order?) by a farmer/rancher living in Fall River County, South Dakota. It ended up in the possession of his son who was a Sp American War vet. I purchased it from his daughter probably 10-15 years ago.
I had hopes it had seen service in the SAW, but it was not to be.

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

I have an 1898 Colt that was shipped to Montgomery Ward Chicago also.

Right down my alley on this one.

I really enjoy researching Major Distributor stuff.

They were always assigned the task of unloading "Surplus" items. That dates back to Post Civil War and way beyond the turn of the Century. Always using Market Ploys with their fancy wording. Listing 10 year discontinued stock as a "NEW MODEL"...Very common market ploy of that Era. See photo's of long Surplus stock listed way post 1900 as New Models. "GENUINE" Smith and Wessons. "NEW MODEL".... LOL. (1920?) It's comical but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do so sell the stuff. Reminds me of a used car salesman.

NO gun was exempt. I've even seen Colt Dragoons, Remingtons, Civil War pistols, sold in a 1907 Distributor pocket catalog often even with a shoulder stock! Surplus? That's like almost 50 years Surplus.... I have no idea where they found that stuff but obviously it was stored somewhere for a long time! Sounds like something the Military would do.

Murph

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Don't forget Bannermans. There was no end to overuns of gun productions that wound up at Bannerman's Island. Roy Jinks has a crate of a doz. Schofields, recrated by Bannermans but still in their original grease, probably bought by Bannermans from surplus sales of the Schofields around the turn of the century. He uses it as a foot rest while sitting at D.B.Wesson's desk in his gun room! Ed.

The reason for this thread is that I own two .44 DA Frontier revolvers and both shipped to Sears, Roebuck & Co in Chicago; one shipped in 1900 and the other shipped in 1901. So the question was is this merely a coincidence or the potential commonality of such a shipping destination made the odds high that both revolvers shipped to the same destination in a short time frame.

I have a DA 4th model .38 (Nickel, 6" barrel & red grips) that letters as going to Belknap Hardware, Louisville, Kentucky in 1901.

I am told that Belknap was as big as Sears at the time. They did have their own tool line.

Books

I've never heard of a Smith & Wesson going directly to Sears, but I'm not the least bit surprised. I have a .44 Double Action that went to Montgomery Ward in Chicago in 1892, which is not all that different.

Chicago was very much on the edge of the frontier at that time, and I could easily imagine a lot of people buying up these big guns with illusions of adventure in their minds. I don't know if Sears did any wholesaling, but it's also possible that they figured they could sell these to local retailers (or directly to customers in the more rural communities). After all, they were in the mail order business by then.

Whatever would make them a buck is what they were always chasing after, and if their buyers thought that there was a market for these, then they would have undoubtedly ordered them.

Mike

I didn't know that S&W made a 5 shot .44 DA Frontier???


(See #8123 below...)

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

Would not surprise me!
At one time Sears sold more Firearms than any vendor in the US.
Once I bought a LH Savage Model 110 from a dealer in Chicago.
When I got it the original box from Savage was addressed to Sears.
Apparently dumped off as excess inventory.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

In going over shipping destinations, I've found hundreds of "Sears" destinations. These were direct shipments, not surplus sales. As others have said, Sears and Montgomery, Ward were large buyers.

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Don Mundell

The real bargain in that ad is the postage.... 25 cents in 1900 calculates to about $7.50 in todays money.

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

Don,
To me the term "Surplus" can come in many forms. Sometimes even the Major Distributor can generate "Surplus" stock on hand. Basically resulting from either "Buying or Manufacturing" too many of any given item.

Some folks define Surplus as only applicable when a New Model or variation is manufactured and you still have the Old model on hand? I don't know any more than the next guy but to me if you have a significant amount of older guns at the factory that have not sold? Then you sell them in bulk to a Major Distributor to sell them? That to me is Surplus Stock. (See Photo 1) Written clearly in a 1902 Distributor catalog?

I have several Distributor catalogs that date back to 1876 and literally all of them list Surplus items for sale with a very clear and written claim that they purchased a "LARGE Quantity" of OLD Stock and are now selling them at a "BARGIN" price... That to me means the items are Surplus but I could be wrong....Maybe it's just another Market Ploy? I Don't know.

When we cross reference the date of the catalog and the known date the guns were discontinued? It can be over 10 years later so I'm thinking the items (guns) are Surplus.

**** Check out that line for the Hammerless revolvers: "A thing of beauty is a Joy forever"? That's a new one on me. Classic. That line was definitely written for collectors!

Murph

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A thing of beauty is a joy forever." John Keats (1795-1821 ...


"A THING of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never. Pass into nothingness; but still will keep. A bower quiet for us, and a sleep. Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."


Kind of fits......

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

My great great grandparents bought a house from Sears and Roebuck, it was shipped by rail with a crew around the turn of the previous century, nice two story clapboard Cape Cod style with covered front porch. My mother was born in that house in '29. It still sits where it was erected, after four generations of my family the family homestead was sold out of family.

Sears was the Amazon of its day back in the early 20th century. The Sears catalog was the single biggest source of products for people living in rural America. Ironically, Sears dropped their catalog to concentrate on brick-and-mortar the same year that Amazon was started. Talk about bad timing!

If Sears would have dropped the catalog and gotten into internet selling, they would probably be around today

Kelly

Absolutely! They had the distribution infrastructure that Amazon is only now building. Amazon would still be an online bookstore like when it started out, and Sears would be selling everything that Amazon does today. Instead, they bet that brick-and-mortar was the future.

Murph
I'd have to check to see how many were sold to Sears of a period of time to say they sold them as surplus. I haven't seen a large number sold to them at one time.

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Don Mundell

Thanks Don,
I guess that sinks my theory then. Just another Market Ploy on the Part of the "Sales Pitch" of the Major Distributor! Maybe the only common denominator of the Major Distributor is the common line of BS?


Murph

The big .44 DA's (including the Frontier) were supposedly cataloged by S&W up until around 1913, so they apparently hadn't "surplussed" old stock off until that time. (at least)

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

I saw article years ago. There was a singer Mel Tormaine , not sure of spelling. He was a Colt collector. He knew an engraved fancy Colt SA had existed as sales sample. He tracked it down through SEARS records and found it to be stored in Chicago with old Sears stock in a warehouse. He purchased it. This wasn’t that long ago, maybe 25yrs? Guy is dead now.

I have a Colt Government Model 1911 that was shipped to Sears in Chicago in 1920, according to the Colt archive letter.



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I visit a Indianapolis pawn shop which stocked and and sold a lot of guns.
They say, we have this really neat Luger which we’re saving for Mel Torme who’s coming next month.
Would you like to see it?
Well DAH!
They went in the back and brought it out.
It was a Cartridge Counter Luger.
Might have been the first one I ever saw.
Not a gun I’m real familiar with.

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[QUOTE=Drm50;140836203]I saw article years ago. There was a singer Mel Tormaine ,

Torme

There was a Mercantile store locally known as The Crescent, they carried only top of the line stuff. As a working guy my only reason to go there was to pick up something extra nice for my wife on the special occasions. They were the store to go to if you could afford a Pendelton wool shirt, everything was like that. Their sporting department carried firearms, I remember drooling over a Colt Python and others. They were the only store in town that carried Mannlicher-Steyr rifles. They were going out of business and sold out the sporting department, a well heeled friend of mine bought at least a dozen Mannlicher's with the polygonal barrels and butter smooth action at near store cost, I was envious.

My apologies for the thread drift, but how old do you have to be to remember the Wish Book from Sears at Christmas time?

It had just about any toy a kid could want in it.

Catalogs were all we had before the internet and Sears was the granddaddy of them all right on up through the 70s and 80s.

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My sgntr is mor thn 30 chrctrs

When I was young and dumb we used to look at the womens undies section...we called it "The Sports Page." Excuse the thread drift...

My first job as a young teenager was at a Sears catalog store in my hometown. In our outhouse in Maine we have a TP holder that asks for a 5 cent deposit for the paper or else we will have to go back to using the Sears catalog.

I wonder if my grandsons will even understand that humor going forward????

FWIW: I just scanned my database of the .22/32 HFT's and did not see one shipment to Sears. Many to Iver Johnson in Boston and a few to Abercrombie & Fitch in NYC and a bunch to Von Lengerke & Antoine, Chi, IL, but no Sears.....

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James Redfield
LM #497

Both forgot where they came from and who put them there. They Are both gone. Does that say any thing to the modern retailers? I doubt it because there is no one around today that can compare with the two giants of past retailing. Mores the pity.

Well...

Which is or was better? Amazon or Sears? I suppose most would argue it's Amazon, as it's thriving. But at least a catalogue is all it took to buy a revolver from Sears. Can you just order a revolver on Amazon.com and have it shipped to your FFL?

Just one more repost.
First Gun I ever bought.
Got it at the big Memphis Sears Store.
Marked J C Higgins, probably a Savage.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Since you raised the issue of Amazon, a little off subject side information.

Mrs. Amazon recently split from Mr. Amazon after 25 years of marriage. Her piece of the pie is valued at 38,000,000,000. That's 38 Billion with a "B"

For those like me that have trouble grasping on to big numbers, that's about 1 1/2 billion dollars per year for each of the 25 marital years. Or about 4.1 million per day or $173,515 per hour based on a 24 hour day.

Heck, I'd marry him for a week at that rate......

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James Redfield
LM #497

Your shotgun is Stevens 94, B I think. If you look on back lower of receiver on right side, above trigger you will see it marked 94 whatever. It was Savage- Stevens- Fox company.

Just a question on these "re-branded" guns. (Higgens, Williams, etc.)
Were they the same quality as the originals or of a somewhat lesser fit and finish? I know that they were always thought of as kind of the red-headed stepson, but were they really?

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

I have said almost these same words repeatedly! If you are a Baby Boomer, you saw the tail end of Sears’ might... it was actually Amazon and Wal Mart folded into one! Surprisingly, they manufactured little if anything for most of their run... they brokered deals with manufacturers and provided an efficient conduit to get products out to the masses. Sometimes they had the manufacturers mark their products with one of Sears’ proprietary brands, and other times they just let the products pass through under their own names.

BTW, as late as the 1950s there was rumored to be a Sears branded version of the Model 29 S&W... does anyone have confirmation of that? Anyway, up until GCA ‘68, Sears sold tons of guns of all sorts, so buying up large lots of surplus (especially those at or near NOS status) would fit right into their business model. It’s a shame they couldn’t see the move to on-line coming since they really were Amazon when Amazon was just a big river!

Froggie

Probably the best gun Sears ever sold were the FN Rifles.
They were almost same as the Brownings of the time, but appeared to have lower grade stocks.
I don’t think I ever actually had the opportunity to compare them side by side.
Some of you folks might have.

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The first shotgun I bought when I was 18 in 1978 was a Ted Williams from Sears that was actually a Winchester 1200. The bluing was very good quality. The stock and forearm were what would be described as "hardwood". But the gun itself was top notch.

So I think the answer to your question is that the finish was perhaps not as high grade as the manufacturer's models, but the quality of the gun as a shooter was second to none.

Agree. Lots of the Sears Wood looked down grade from the Name Brand.
The polishing and bluing appeared to be mostly the same.
Once again I don’t recall ever actually any side by side comparisons on new guns.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Just took a look on right side.
Mine has a small circle with 4D inside, then to the right of that it says
Model 94C.

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