Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

My great-grandfather ordered that from the factory. My father gave it to me before he died this past year. It was ordered custom-made by my great- grandfather. My father wrote to the Marlin Factory in 1950 to see if he could get a copy of the original invoice. But there had been a fire apparently and they didn't have it but they gave him some information that the original cost was probably between $30 and $35 and it was probably shipped sometime after 1897.

APPRAISER

What you have here is a Marlin Rifle called a model 1895, and caliber 45/90. And they were built by the Marlin Firearms Manufacturing Company and they made about 18,000 of them. And they were designed as a big-game hunting rifle. This particular rifle--your grandfather or great-grandfather special-ordered the gun from the factory and it has a lot of special features on it that would not have come on an ordinary rifle that you bought over the counter. Like this pistol grip which is checkered. The fore-end, which is checkered. It has this lovely engraving here with a moose on the side of it. And then it has a special barrel take-down mechanism. By pulling this forward and taking this out the gun comes apart in two pieces and then the barrel is also made in two dimensions what is called a half-octagon barrel. The reason for the take-down feature was that the gun was made so you could take them apart and put them in your suitcase and you could travel on trains at the time. And it is very desirable to collectors to have a gun like this with these special-order features. Well, if this gun was still in brand-new condition it would be worth more than it is today because there is a little wear from hunting and stuff on the checkering and the finish on the receiver. But in today's market, this is a very desirable gun and it would bring somewhere between $6,000 and $8,000.

GUEST

Oh, wow. That means a lot to me and my father would be very pleased to hear about this.