Sam Holt Arms Co.

[kimbernut]

Trying to help a friend track down any information possible on this shotgun: Double barrel SxS, External double hammers,double triggers,from the side the firing pins look like percussion nipples but are actually spring loaded firing pins.Each side plate reads-Sam Holt Arms Co. with an engraved picture of a hound.Top of rib connecting barrels reads: Belgium Royal Damascus. Bottom of rib has a 4 digit number.I have not mic'ed the barrels but they appear to be 20 gauge. Any help will be appreciated.

 

[Jim Watson]

About all I can contribute is that there are untold numbers of minor make Belgian shotguns marked with brand names that sound kind 'a, sort 'a like famous major gun companies.

 

[Penman]

Jim has it nailed, lots of companies imported inexpensive Belgian guns, and added their own trade names. Similar situation decades later, when some foreign manufacturers made revolvers that said: "for .38 SMITH AND WESSON cartridges" on the barrel, hoping people would misinterpret the inscription and think they were genuine S&W's.

 

[Jim K]

Other cheap shotguns used names similar to those of famous English and American makers. Some were Barker Bros., W.W. Breener, W. Richards, W. Britchards, Westley and Scott, Hollard and Hollard, and so on. The very fact that the gun could only sell "under false colors", as it were, shows the quality, or lack of it, of the gun.

File under "wallhanger".

Jim

 

[Jagermeister]

Sam Holt

Kimbernut:
I foud this in SXS's of the World, 2K by Charles Carder.

 

[kimbernut]

This is pretty much what I expected as soon as I saw the name Sam Holt. Just curious if there really was such a person actually involved with the company(ie. Chas. Daly). Thanks to all for the input- most appreciated!
Jagermeister, the excerpt from the SxS of the World is interesting but cuts off with only 1/2 line showing reference to a picture. I'd really appreciate the full page if that's possible or a site address. The shotgun is a 12 ga. by the way. Thanks again all!

 

[4v50 Gary]

So Sam Holt is

the Belgian effort to dupe prospective buyers of Sam Colt.

 

[Alex]

I've got the Sears catalog that lists the shotgun. In later years Sears started selling better grades of shotguns under house names such as the Aubrey, but when you consider the price of this gun and look at the difference in price for Ithaca's, Smiths, Bakers, and Remingtons, selling for double and up, it tells you that it wasn't high quality. I would definitely consider it a wallhanger.

 

[bigjim]

Wow a original selling price of $9.60

They hold the value well! Decades later they are still almost selling for new price!

Tough crowd.....

 

[Jim K]

For the period from roughly 1880 to the start of WWI, a pretty good conversion figure for money is 40:1, that is one dollar in 1900 would buy roughly what $40 will buy today. So that $9.60 shotgun was not so cheap; some double barrel guns sold in that era for half that.

In 1884, the top grade Parker sold for $300, a very expensive gun, then and now. The Single Action Army Colt was $13.75, but "bulldog" revolvers went for $3.00 and cheap spur trigger revolvers (later called "suicide specials) for $1.50.

Jim