doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Emil Flues

I think you might want to cross check those numbers again...you just claimed that there are almost twice as many Smiths out there than Ithaca Flues models...don't look at the serial ranges, look at the production numbers

Ithaca had a gun at every price point. From the bottom to the top grade, from the Nitro Specials to what every you could afford. Robert is right that low price guns forced all the makers to lower cost, lower margins and bring out lower grade or less complex guns with less fit and finish in all grades of guns to keep open.

Just look at Fox. Every year after 1910 or so, Fox either brought out a lower grade gun or was forced to cut cost and quality to keep going. A. H. Fox never wanted to bring out a Sterlingworth grade but instead wanted to make the very best grades. It was just that the market for these high grades has always been very limited. Decreasing fit and finish, less machining and less complex designs were a constant evolution of the Fox line. Early graded guns were very well finished while the later ones were much less so.

Ithacas lower prices were a drag on all the makers prices. Hard to sell your gun for 60 when Ithaca made a double for $25, $35 and $45. And for years Ithaca made money even at these lower prices. While one by one the other makers either stopped making doubles or turned to other guns for sales.

I see what you mean about the production numbers when you look at the serial information at this website...I had based my information on the production totals I read in "The Greatest Shotguns Ever produced in America"

Another great discussion Robert!!!! Keep them coming!!!! DGJ has a good article some time back that compared the actual sales figures between all the great American doubles, I can't get to them right now but I'll look that article up tomorrow. He based his premise on that at the time when all of the great American doubles were being produced that the sportsman of the day picked the Ithaca over all of them "Hands Down". I remember that the Ithaca did out sale all of the other top tiered doubles BUT the article also said that pricing of the Ithaca was comparable to all the other doubles grade for grade.
All the best

Another interesting aspect of Ithaca according to Snyder is its policy of producing inventory of new models before public introduction. No failures to meet demand. Also can't help noticing that the expedient hodgepodge "facility" at Ithaca could be indicative of an entrenched gun-making capability and no-nonsense pragmatism about striking while the iron is hot to borrow the smithy metaphor. It must have been a genuine "skunkworks". By comparison, Fox's Philly operation has that "all paint and no engine" look of a transplanted boutique.

jack

KY isn't that what I pretty much said....nothing smart ass about my post Robert.

With production numbers like that what happened to all of them ?

Did the midwest Farmers buy Parkers amd make fence posts out of their Ithacas ?

With today's shooter/collector, it'd take a top condition middling grade Flues to fetch the selling price of an entry level Philly Sterlingworth. AH Fox did all the right esthetics and mechanicals to perk the interest of the modern sportsman.
This is a Flues spirit crowd, I know, but you gotta face the facts - the chase is on with Fox!

Numbers aside for the moment...remember the point I was trying to make initially, that no other patent, in the history of double production, instantly commanded such a large marketshare, forcing all competitors to respond, or face possible demise...not before and not since...
If there are any that come close, I'd like to hear about it....
Remember, Newton Arms employed Flues after that economic boom that Ithaca Gun Co experienced, in hopes of attaining the same type of financial success...AND...there is evidence that Emil Flues may have been involved, to some degree, in the final years of the E R Thomas motorcar company. People hoped that he could do for them, as he had done for Ithaca Gun Co.

To quote KY John..."A. H. Fox never wanted to bring out a Sterlingworth grade but instead wanted to make the very best grades"

Funny that you say this because...Emil's friends, including Emil's apprenticed journeyman Salvatore Licotta, suggested that this was the very reason that Ithaca and Flues had parted ways...Emil was lookin' to give the English shotgun trade a run for their money, and Ithaca would have loved to have done that, but unfortunately they were forced to make the over-invested assemly line* pay for itself as soon as possible. We don't know what Sheldon Smith had promiced Emil in order for him to end his 10 year partnership with Robert Wrege, but whatever it was, the Ithaca stockholders couldn't or wouldn't allow it...when Emil and his high hopes were crowded out of the factory within 2-3 years after asking him to uproot his life and business, several sympathetic white shirts commisioned Emil to produce some handmade shotguns...they even arrainged a place in town for him to set up shop, and started him with a good supply of Krupp barrels in 20ga

* Remember, Ithaca had financially over extended themselves with the new assembly line investment...and we know they were experiencing difficulties, because of the way they completely scrapped designs for new ones...not to mention all the costs associated with re-tooling, re-training, and all new jigs, to support these new models...Crass had run it's course, and the Minier and Lewis models were not a financial success for Ithaca...and to re-tool 3 times in 4 years must have cost them heavily...

It is apparent that Emil Flues had a lot of patents and I assume that Ithaca owned many of them. I think you are suggesting that a number of the patents allowed Ithaca to build good guns at a more reasonable cost than its competitors and therefore the company prospered. If I have surmised correctly, what were these critical patents for?