doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Amazing, or What?

More comments from the peanut gallery. You must have the most amazing gun collection in your homeless place.

I think thats subjective!!!!!

He may, may not, can't say what he would be proud of.

Trust me, he owns a few junk teeth.
Best,
Ted

There's a lot of value here when you think of it in terms of rarity and firearms history and development. If Markethunter has seen a couple of these, that's a couple more than most of us will ever see. Sure, the pad is not original, and probably the sling swivels too. But what would the price be if it was perfectly tight and all original. The 28" barrels may well be original. The stock looks like it has been cleaned and refinished at some point, but thankfully not abused or sanded. Lefever learned that this and all other contemporary guns could be shot loose with heavy loading and went on to develop hammerless guns with wear compensating features. Mr. Livingston obviously continued Lefevers' level of fit, detail, and wood quality. It is doubtful that the buyer will be posting here asking who can open the chambers to 2 3/4" so he can shoot factory loads at cowboy action shoots. So what is the value? I don't know. What do you suppose Lee Harvey Oswalds' 6.5 Carcano would sell for if it showed up on Gunbroker?

Walt: There's a real nice Nichols & Lefever E-grade 10-bore pictured in my new Parker Guns: Shooting Flying book, and it's a shooter owned by Bob Boussum, one of the "Yooper" guys who put on the double gun shoot each June in Michigan's UP.

If you refer to the Roy Eckrose Online Auction Survey (2004), there were zero Nichols & Lefevers sold that year (and zero Dangerfield & Lefevers, and zero L. Barber & Co. Lefevers). These guns are rare in any condition. Uncle Dan always considered himself a large-scale gunsmith rather than a commercial maker (per a 1900 interview); to compare, Parker Brothers was always an industrial maker of commercial quantities (3000 to 7500 guns per year), averaging about 4,000 guns from the mid-1870s till the Great Depression. I don't know how many guns Uncle Dan made in his 3-year partnership with John A. Nichols, but it couldn't be many. The Boussum E-grade is the only one I have ever seen in person, and it is nice. EDM

According to Swinney, Livingston was the foreman in the Nichols and Lefever shop. He stuck around with Nichols after ther break-up and marketed a few guns that were either made of leftover N&L parts or exactly duplicated those parts with his name on them. He left Syracuse a couple of years later.

That makes the gun in question interesting. As I see it one of a couple of things happened. Either this was a N&L that went back to Livingston, after he left Syracuse and moved to Casenovia, for either repairs or new barrels, or Livingston had the completed receiver, already inscribed with N&L, and completed the gun in Casenovia.

Either way, congratulations to the buyer. It makes a nice piece of a LeFever historical collection.

If anybody is aware of any Livingston guns that are not N&L parts or relicas I would like to hear about it.

A few comments on "Rarity". Rare can be a great price enhancer or not depending upon circumstances. "If" there were only 5 items of a given object made, but several hundred people want one of them, price will continue to escalate as buyers are willing to pay more to obtain one. On the other hand take another item also made in a quantity of 5, but nobody has a desire for one. Price will continue to plummet as sellers try to unload them.
I truly believe the price this item went to shows there are more who would like to have one, than there is a supply for them.
It's the old "Supply & Demand" feature, not "Just Rarity".

About 10 years ago I was at an Ohio Gun Collector's show. Hank Williams Jr had a table of his Colts that I was looking at. A guy brought over a Patterson in what most would have called very poor condition. Hank and his friends behind the table were very interested in that little gun. It made an impression me that a collector that could afford rare guns in good condition was so interested in such a poor one. I didn't hang around long enough to know if he made an offer to buy.

Yeah, but don't lose sight of the fact that Hank can skin a buck and run a trot line.

Puglisi Gun Emporium had a couple of Nichols & Lefever hammer guns listed for guite a while.

I see they finally sold....I guess they just came in high demand.