I just wanted to thank you guys again for helping me with the 1916 flues I picked up (that I thought was a nitro!). As it turned out, 16 was my lucky number. A 1916, 16 gauge! When I got it in 2015 my wife and I had been trying for a child for a few years. In 2016 it happened. I was born on Dec 16th and my wife was born on nov 16th and one year after the post, November 2016, my son was born, and he will get this flues one day! You guys really are a great group and I was fortunate to two into your insight.
Eddy, congratulations on your purchase. I noticed that in an earlier post you referred to an A Grade. Quite a few manufacturers did use letters to indicate different grades of guns. Ithaca did not. The "entry level" of the more modern Ithaca doubles (made since 1900) were called Field Grade guns. Higher grade guns were designated by number rather than letter. And things are also complicated by the fact that--as you've discovered--Ithaca made double barrel guns under other names. After they purchased Lefever Arms, they brought out the Lefever Nitro Special as a less expensive option to the guns that carried the Ithaca name. A bit later than that, they made guns that were still less expensive under the Western Arms name. (Especially when the Depression hit, a difference in price of just $1 or $2 might have been the difference between selling a gun or not. The Lefever A Grade was the "fancy" gun of those made by Ithaca that did not carry the Ithaca name. They're not very common. Only about 2500 of them were made from 1934-39. The Lefever Nitro Special, introduced earlier and less expensive than the A Grade, sold better . . . about 300,000 of them. The Western Arms Model was Ithaca's least expensive double barrel gun, and also sold quite well: 65,000 of them were produced from1929-1942, and about 65,000 more were made in 1946, after WWII ended and most guns made by Ithaca were no longer going to the military and civilian production had begun once again.
