doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Value of 1934 Skeet Model 21

So,to add to the confusion, mine is#4047 sold to the Navy Athletic Association. Finished in March 17, 1937. It is marked Skeet on the trigger plate. However, just forward of the trigger plate screw,if held in the right light I can see the word Tournament hiding in the steel. Management just changed it's mind and polished out a grade. But, the steel crystals remembered.

This is fun info! Guessing your details on this gun are from a Cody letter? Does it name the grade or refer to "Skeet" as gun, finish or grade?

Jay

Mr. Cash, a SKEET marked gun can easily have longer barrels or tighter chokes than normal. If a customer wanted a capped pistol grip and a checkered butt, he would order a "Skeet Gun" instead of a Field Grade and pay about $15.00 more. He could get any chokes he wanted. My wife owns a 20 gauge "Skeet Gun", marked SKEET on the trigger plate, choked IC and MOD. No mystery here. No sarcasm either.

The photo copy of the Final Inspection Report in hand writing "std M/21". From Cody " Model G2100B Standard". So, end of argument?

I'm confused again.
According to earlier posts, were not the attributes of a "SKEET" stamped gun those that made it useful for the game of Skeet?
What you're describing in your last post sounds like the characteristics of a particular "grade" of gun, not of a gun made for a particular purpose.
Sincerely (really)
Bob

p.s. Not to be argumentative but nowhere in previous posts did you mention a 1936 catalog. You did however refer to a price list.
I asked about seeing a catalog in the spirit of furthering my Model 21 education.

Ok ... maybe closing in on why Schwing referred to "Skeet Grade" -- perhaps because from 1936 on the defining characteristics of "Skeet" were "grade-like" in all respects except retaining the previous advertising and catalog naming? SOMETHING changed in 1936, and he does define furniture characteristics for the guns. With chokes entirely unsuitable for skeet, "Skeet Gun" seems a misnomer, while -- "Skeet Finish" really seems the equivalent of "grade".

But then Schwing shows choke tables with only WS chokes too -- maybe from the pre-"finish" period when "Skeet Gun" was in fact defined by it's purpose for the game? It IS confusing.

Jay

PS - I second and share Bob's respect for you Bill, don't mean at all to suggest anything else.

Ok ... maybe closing in on why Schwing referred to "Skeet Grade" -- perhaps because from 1936 on the defining characteristics of "Skeet" were "grade-like" in all respects except retaining the previous advertising and catalog naming? SOMETHING changed in 1936, and he does define furniture characteristics for the guns. With chokes entirely unsuitable for skeet, "Skeet Gun" seems a misnomer, while -- "Skeet Finish" really seems the equivalent of "grade".

But then Schwing shows choke tables with only WS chokes too -- apparently from the pre-finish/grade period when "Skeet Gun" was in fact defined by it's purpose for the game rather than by it's finish. It IS confusing.

Jay

Jay, no one would accuse the WRA people of trying to fool us into thinking Grade and Finish are the same or different. The only claim Researcher and I have made is that Winchester never, to our knowledge, had a catalog offering of "Skeet Grade". How you guys got into a many page conflict about the truth of that statement is beyond me.

Well Bill, I don't want "how you guys got into a many page conflict" to be a puzzle. If you'd merely said there was no catalog offering instead of saying there was no Skeet Grade, there would have been no reason to reconcile what you were saying vs. what Schwing wrote and you said was wrong. Schwing said nothing about Skeet Grade appearing in catalogs, and no one here claimed it did either.

Seems to me you were a bit of a party to the conflict part when others were asking questions to clarify and understand.

While acknowledging and accepting that the later catalogs still said "Skeet Gun", I thought it unlikely Schwing was entirely mistaken in making so much a point of distinguishing between what "Skeet" meant before and after 1936. I thought and still do that the marketing guys would have thought it too confusing to explain the change in promotional material designed to sell.

Jay