looks pretty nice to me...
no fraud here that i see...
this gun is a batavia leader, which is as i recall is a product of the crescent company, who bought the baker name when it was offered for sale? case colors look to good to be original, but they could be in fact original, not that it means that much with crescent made guns.
No, ED. Folsom bought Baker. Baker still made the guns, not Crescent, which was also owned by Folsom.
That's something I didn't know, Ken. I have read and also assumed that there had been a drop in quality after the Folsom acquisition. Would you disagree with that statement? Same maker, same quality? I guess if there was a drop in quality then it would have been a result of Folsom trying to reduce expenses at Baker. No idea if that was the case.
I don't know much at all about Baker's, and I'm definitely not an expert at identifying every torch job. I usually look for circles and purples. I had also seen that particular auction. Reason I didn't follow it was that the colors did look funny, but I didn't know if they were original or not. I'd like to find a nice Baker 16 or 20. Only reason I didn't follow that auction is because I thought the colors were just down right ugly, original or not. 100% that's an ugly gun.
All my Baker's are pre-Folsom guns. My Hammer gun has the cross piece that made the Baker actions so strong, a feature eliminated in the Batavia guns. I'm not sure if this feature was present in the higher-grade Folsom era guns, hopefully one of our Baker experts on the board will provide the answer. As to Folsom-era quality, perhaps they'll be able to address that as well.
My reading of the history concludes that the same Baker factory made all the Baker guns, it was not closed down when Folsom bought Baker, nor was production shifted to the Crescent factory. I seem to recall that it was Carder that equated Bakers to Crescent, that's a common answer to inquiries about Bakers on the internet and is probably responsible for Bakers being excellent values (especially Batavia guns) today..Personally, I find Batavia Leaders to be really nice shooting guns, especially with 6500psi/1 oz/1000fps loads. They make a nice starter Vintage shooter..
Regards
Ken
