Your gun is the later Ithaca hammer gun known as the New Ithaca Gun (NIG). The NIG replaced the Baker Model in 1887, between serial numbers 6549 and 6550. The NIG was built concurrantly with the Crass, Lewis, Minnier and early Flues Model hammerless doubles up to 1914. Your gun with a serial number in the 25xxx range would be from the late 1893 to early 1895 range. Give Walt the complete serial number and possibly he can find some information on it. The NIG was offered in ascending qualities X, A, AA, B, C, D and E. The X, A, and AA were essentially all the same gun with just the Ithaca logo roll-stamped on the side of the receiver, the difference being the barrel materials -- X had Smokeless Powder Steel barrels, A had Twist barrels and AA had Damascus barrels. Qualities B through E had increasing finer Damascus barrels, increasingly finer wood and checkering, and increasing amounts of hand engraving. Ithaca hammer guns above Quality B are extremely scarce.
