Henry Rifle sells at Auction

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

Last Saturday I attended the Amoskeag auction in Manchester NH. I also attended the viewing prior to the auction and had a chance to handle many fine old guns. It was a real treat handling this Henry, it is the only real Henry I have ever handled. It was expected to sell for between $20,000 and $30,000. The winning bid was $19,000, a little bit too rich for my blood. I'm pretty sure the bidding on this one was between some guys on the phone, I did not see anybody bidding on it in the room. For some reason Amoskeag does not show this item in their on line list of what everything sold for, so I took the liberty of scanning in the page from my catalog. I hope it is legible and please excuse my scribbling the selling price on my catalog.

The Serial Number is 5774 but the catalog does not list what year it was made. There were several 1866s at the auction, plus some other really cool guns.



By the way, I opened the lever, and as far as I could tell it opened about the same amount as a modern Uberti 1860 Henry.

[Loophole LaRue]

DJ:

I work in Manchester, and have drooled over their webpage several times - but never gone to the auctions.

I take it you would call it worth the effort?

Anything in the normal man's budget worth bidding on?

LL

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Loophole

Naw, nothing at all that is of interest to the average shooter. Stay home and don't bid against me.

Seriously though, there was lots of stuff there that I was interested in and some of it went surprisingly cheap. I had my sights set on an old Winchester Model 12 made in 1914. It came up really, really late in the auction and almost everybody had gone home, so I wound up walking home with it for a song. A couple of other things found their way into my car too, a terrific S&W K22 from 1932 and a terrific Ruger Flat Top 44 Mag Blackhawk from 1958. I got the K22 for a reasonably good price, I paid a lot for the Ruger, but I went home very happy.

Auction items can be viewed the week beforehand. The staff was very friendly and I was allowed to examine everything I wanted to see, including a S&W First Model Russian that went for $8500. If you are right there in Manchester anyway you really should sneak over on your lunch hour and take a peek.

[Loophole LaRue]

DJ:

As usual, accounts of gun purchases leave my MA-addled brain fogged and struggling.

Are the guns you purchased on The List?  Were they MA "registered" prior to the effective date?  Are they excluded for some other reason(s)?  It's just curiosity, but as soon as I get away from buying new guns that clearly fit the requirements, I lose my way.  And I'd like to understand how this works if I'm at the auction....

Gracias.

LL

[Coffinmaker]

I like auctions as it gets late, most folks go home, and the offerings are selling at "no reserve."

Coffinmaker

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Loophole

I bought them on my C&R (Curio and Relic) license. Anything 50 years old or more is legal to buy on a C&R. PM me if you want more details.

[Henry4440]

Some nice Auction websites:

Rock Island Auction
http://www.rockislandauction.com/auctions.aspx

James D. Julia
http://jamesdjulia.com/firearms.asp

Little John's Auction
http://www.littlejohnsauctionservice.com/

Heritage Auction & Greg Martin
http://historical.ha.com/ArmsArmor/

Amoskeag Auction
http://www.amoskeagauction.com/

LeRoy Merz
http://www.leroymerz.com/index.php

[Tuolumne Lawman]

I actually handled an original Henry that was later pictured in Sword's book in a tintype of an Officer in Illinois.  I handled the original discharge papers and the tintype also.  A friend had an antique shop in Jamestown CA in about 1994-95.  He had it there deciding if to buy it.  The seller renigged on the $9,000 asking sale price (which my friend agreed to) and then sold it elsewhere for huge money. 

An interesting side note, that friend actually owned the bunkhouse and outhouse used in Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" which had portions were shot outside of Jamestown.