Raven arms , early 1800s
- Thread starter Hoyte
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.455_Hunter
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Isn't that the exact gun Teddy carried up San Juan Hill?
I get all my info from the bearded fat guy with BO who keeps the counter from falling over at the LGS.
I get all my info from the bearded fat guy with BO who keeps the counter from falling over at the LGS.
Monac
Member
A) Funny mistake!
B) I stopped pointing out mistakes like that, even though I still snort at them, because of how many mistakes I make myself.
C) That is an early production Raven with the first type of safety catch (they used three or four different ones). It was odd in some way, like working the slide automatically put the gun on safe or something. If you've got a copy of J.B. Wood's "Troubleshooting Your Handgun", he describes it there.
D) This gun is from the early 1970's, I think, so it is about 50 years old. People are getting interested in collecting them, because they are old, cheap (relatively speaking), American, and an odd part of firearms history. Remember when Spanish-made pistols from 1905 to 1935 were worthless junk? Check out the asking prices on them now.
E) I still think the seller dreaming by asking $200, but I am old enough that $200 seems like pretty good money to me, so who knows?
B) I stopped pointing out mistakes like that, even though I still snort at them, because of how many mistakes I make myself.
C) That is an early production Raven with the first type of safety catch (they used three or four different ones). It was odd in some way, like working the slide automatically put the gun on safe or something. If you've got a copy of J.B. Wood's "Troubleshooting Your Handgun", he describes it there.
D) This gun is from the early 1970's, I think, so it is about 50 years old. People are getting interested in collecting them, because they are old, cheap (relatively speaking), American, and an odd part of firearms history. Remember when Spanish-made pistols from 1905 to 1935 were worthless junk? Check out the asking prices on them now.
E) I still think the seller dreaming by asking $200, but I am old enough that $200 seems like pretty good money to me, so who knows?
lemaymiami
Member
Ravens (and similar really junk iron...) are best used with no one else around - better yet give one to someone you don't like and let them risk firing it.... In my early years on the street (came out of our local academy winter of 1974) junk iron like ravens, jennings, RG revolvers and all their variations... were pretty common on the street and usually in the hands of someone with bad intentions and zero firearms skill... Don't miss those years - not one bit....
22250Rem
Member
Pretty amazing. 1800's? Not quite. I know that gun prices are getting crazy high, but $200. for a Raven ?? Could this really be feasible? If so, I may consider offering the one that's been occupying room in the safe since 1995. A true classic American compact defensive pistol for the discriminating firearms connoisseur seeking a real piece of firearms history from the 1970's - 80's era. You now have the opportunity to own this timeless classic for a limited time only price of just $200. They don't make them anymore and the supply is limited. Act now and get an added bonus of a couple boxes of the required 25 ACP ammunition. ( Grin )...
armedwalleye
Member
I want me summa dem marble grips....
lemaymiami
Member
Sweeten that offering - add a box of band-aids to go with it...
MachIVshooter
Member
As well as a number of others. To me, a WASR shouldn't be more than $300, a Mosin or Yugo SKS is still an $89.95 surplus rifle, and ugly but functional old IJ or H&R top breaks are $30-$50 items. Apparently the current market disagrees.
Monac
Member
You're telling me. I bought a Swedish Mauser at a Woolworth's (!) for $65 back in the 1980's. I still can't get it through my head that it would be a $400 rifle now, give or take $100.
Monac
Member
Your Raven has what I think of as the main production type safety catch, the tiny sliding one, so it doesn't have the collector's cachet of the 1800's one. Late production had a pivoting safety catch in the same place. There might have been a 4th type, but I can't remember.
There is, or was, a poster in these forums who had a 30-round magazine for his Raven. I guess they were made for the gang-banger market lemaymiami remembers.
22250Rem
Member
I have no idea as to what era of Raven production that one is from. The LGS took in several guns on a trade-in deal for something else back in March 1995 and that Raven was one of them. Shop owner said; " I don't stock junk..... For 25 bucks it's yours". So on a whim it became mine. It's had 208 rounds through it since then with no problems. Now it's pretty much retired and kept as a curiosity piece. Back when I got it I was working in a hazardous waste incinerator and several times a year did gun burns for different police departments. We took a lot of Ravens out of circulation permanently along with most other cheap stuff, a lot of which came from the gun buy backs besides the usual stuff the cops brought in. We must have burned up a ton of street guns & buy backs. There's a lot less Ravens around than there used to be. But I can't picture that as rarity = value.
groundhog34
Member
I owned a shop in the early 70's if my memory is correct we sold Ravens and Jennings for $29. Sold 4 for 5 a day.
22250Rem
Member
Buddy of mine was an FFL in the 80's & 90's and sold a bunch of those. Once upon a time they were seemingly everywhere. Six or seven years ago I was talking to a 20- something year old guy at a gun show who had never seen one in person. He'd heard of them and seen pictures but that was it. That's when I realized that I was getting old.
sparkyfender
Member
I have seen a few Ravens in the wild and they seem to work, no matter how much we deride them.
Jennings, however...............
Jennings, however...............
lemaymiami
Member
I was our property room custodian in the early eighties (newly made sergeant filling a need) and had to hold, track, and inventory every kind of evidence plus found items and contraband (as well as guns, money, etc.) I was also responsible for destroying weapons no longer needed for court cases. Being a former commercial fisherman and having the Gulfstream nearby I got permission to use one of our police boats to dump items to be destroyed in the ocean -in over 300 feet of water while moving so that there wouldn’t be more than one or at the most two items in one spot. In our case that was several garbage cans loaded with every type of weapon. A fun day and a break from the ordinary routine. That depth in saltwater pretty much guaranteed the destruction process without my department paying for more than the fuel needed that day...
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