Some of the very late Crandall guns don't even have the true Clarance Wollam action with the floating V-shaped mainspring powering the hammer and acting as the cocking rod. He fitted a coil mainspring and follower on the sideplate, getting closer to a sidelock.
The two Norwich catalogues I have seem to be 1906 and 1907 and don't have the Black Diamond Model in them, but the 1907 came with a flyer introducing the Black Diamond and it is stamped "Received Nov 7, 1908." It mentions that they would finish up other of their grades in the "Pyro-Oxidized" black finish as well. I tracked down one of Frank Major Tobin's grandsons and did an article on Frank's gun in The Double Gun Journal, Volume Eight, Issue 1. It was a top-of-the-line No. 60 Model Grade and had the Pyro-Oxidized black finish. It looked like the gun pictured in the Canadian catalogues as a Regal Grade No. 250.
When I visited Woodstock in September 1994, there was a discount shoe store in part of the old Tobin factory building.
I have three Crandall-era catalogues of his Tobin guns and none mention the Pyro-Oxidized black finish. Crandall's guns were graded A to E from lowest to highest. The E-Grade shown in the catalogues appears to have serial number 19391. By the latest catalogue he had dropped the cheaper A and B grades and added ann E-Special grade at the top end.
