I guess before we understand any of the financial troubles Ithaca was experiencing and therefore have to dig their way out of through their constant change of designs throughout the period where LC Smith, Parker and Remington were its competition we would have to look back to find out why the first hammerless models like the Crass, Lewis and the Manier models did not compare favorable in the shooting public and buying public's mind to the Parker, LC Smith or Remington???
Complicated design??? some people think, even today and on this board, that the Parker is overly complicated...What else then detracted people from buying the early Ithaca?? Was it the Baker designed hammer gun??
All the best
treblg1958,
First, I don't think Minier and Lewis models ever really got much past New York State before they where discontinued, making those models the rare and interesting by my standards....I can only guess what drove the American shotgun consumer back then...but it's fitting that you named the LC Smith, Parker, and Remington as the chosen standard...Parkers, and especially Smiths clang shut like the expression says..."like a bank vault"...there is something to be said for the sound of safety each and every time you load the gun...I suspect that's why the doctors and lawyers of the world have traditionally picked Parker, as their gun of choice.
I don't think the Crass was a bad design...maybe it was the marketing, but more probable is that it was the cost vs: eye appeal...one thing is appearant, Ithaca was on the look out for "faster, cheaper, better" during the model variations fron Crass to Flues....
