Spencers spotted on Eastern Seaboard

[DJ]

I just got back from the East Coast where I attended the Baltimore Antique Arms show.  If you haven't been to this annual event (occurs mid-March every year), I highly recommend it.

As I walked the show, I kept seeing Spencers here, there, and seemingly everywhere.   So I decided to count them.  I might have missed a couple, but my lovely, sharp-eyed spouse (who can identify most of the civil war carbines at a glance) and I counted 46 Spencer carbines and 10 Spencer rifles for sale.  There was also one Spencer carbine on display that presumably was not for sale.

The rifles were mostly M1860 models, but there were also two or three that were converted from Burnside carbines and one "buffalo rifle."  Among the M1860 rifles were a couple Navy models with three-digit serial numbers. 

The carbines were about evenly divided between M1860s and M1865s.  I did not take the time to sort out the new-made 65s from those converted from M1860s.  I also did not discern any New Models or M1867s.

Prices were all over the place, but there were some Spencers that would have tempted me had I been in the market, while others seemed inexplicably high.  I had one amusing "negotiation" over an 1876 Winchester--I thought the seller's asking price of "twenty-three" was a good place to start haggling, but it turns out he meant twenty-three THOUSAND, not twenty-three HUNDRED!  D"oh!

More generally, there were over a thousand tables of arms, almost all antiques.  Some other items I saw (good for side matches, perhaps), were a Chaffee-Reese (753 manufactured by Springfield Armory for trials in 1884); three two-shot, single barrel Lindsay muzzle loaders (about 1,000 made in the Civil War--problematic and unpopular, so not many survived), and two Lee Vertical Breech single shot rifles (total of 143 made by Springfield Armory for military trials in 1875--looks like part-Peabody/Martini and part-Werder).

Every year I see, handle, and try not to drool on something new and different, and this year was no exception.

--DJ

 

[Walksfire]

Hey DJ:  That was the same event I was at. See my earlier post You saw alot more spencers than I did. Either they got sold by late sunday, or some dealers had packed up their inventory. Either way, it was a great event to witness in volume. I was told the Gettysburg event in July is even bigger at the Eisenhower Farm.