The Baker site lists the "Batavia" line beginning in 1903, and lists the Batavia Leader serial numbers from 75,000 to about 106,000. I suspect that this includes all Bakers/Batavias, not just the leader. If it did, than would mean that Baker made 31,000 Batavia Leaders in around five years or so.
Now for the hard part. My cousins gun falls within the Batavia serial number range, yet it clearly has the Block Safety as well as the barrel lug bolt, (draw block) both reportedly eliminated from the Batavia series. Pretty confusing. One hypothetical could be that the "New Era" gun was made according to the desires of the retailer, in this case probably "The Fair", which perhaps desired the pre Batavia type of lock. A better explanation is that the Batavia actions were not changed until 1908, when the line was expanded, this would explain the info listed in Daryl Hallquist's post when he said the action (Hollenbeck's) was used until around 1909.
Really, the most significant thing is to recognize that the "Batavia Leader" was of the same quality of the earlier Grade A & B guns, rather than lumping it in with the newer Batavias (post 1908) when the actions as well as the models changed. Since it was made until 1919, was the 1908 time frame the point when they changed the action and started using steel barrels? If so, it essentially became a different gun.
So, it appears that many significant changes were made many years before Folsom bought BG&F, now, using pre 1908 as a term as well as pre Folsum may be appropriate.
All this stuff may seem a little boring and confusing to some, yet to me I find unraveling a puzzle like this to be fascinating.
Last edited by Ken61; 04/02/14 04:33 PM.
