I like Bushmaster's notion that they may not have "the aura of those from companies that met a much earlier and swifter demise, e.g. Parker, Fox, and L.C. Smith." My notion is there's some peculiar psychology, more than looks and reliability, going on with Ithacas. There may be something of a nostalgic or romantic attachment to the companies that didn't linger. It baffles me.
"Much Earlier and Swifter demise"......
Dusenberg and Cord, plus a multitude of other "high quality" cars and products did not survive the depression......can't understand how that "baffles" you..........?......Especially when you see the very "low" quality arms that survived these hard times, i.e. Savage made stamped out products etc. and even then
just barely........The low end products always survive hard times more readily than quality/costly products due to their vast majority audience......just look at history for any product line.....very clear footprint indeed.........
No mystic psychology required there at all....."cheap sold----high dollar did not"....
LC Smith did, by the way, survive the depression as Hunter Arms until October of 1945... Marlin owned thereafter.....doubles were made until the Fulton, N.Y. factory flooring collapsed January 17, 1949, at which time double gun manufacture ceased....production guns on hand were assembled and sold through 1951 until the stock was depleted....Marlin had found that the "true double" LC Smith was too costly to produce....and yielded to cheaper production guns, as had all the others in this country.......
Without World War II, the entire firearms industry
and the entire world economy would have been a very different animal indeed.........
