A Savage day at Redding Auction

-Hopped into the SAABaru to attend today's first of two auctions @ Redding in Gettysburg. The main goal was to try and find a hard rubber butt plate for my 1895 Winchester Lee Sporter. Lots of Winchester butt plates but none for my Winnie. But did snag a 50 rd box of ammo for my 1903 Colt Pocket Hammer for cheap.
-There were two other items of interest to keep me there after the smalls were all sold: a pair of Savages. The first to come up was a VG condition Savage 23A Sporter. Excellent original bluing, a lightly sanded stock and an original magazine missing its "button". I've watched for a 23A for a while now but most of these have led hard lives. Don't know what the total production run was but it's not hard to find them. Just hard to find in VG or better condition. So when bidding on this very nice example stalled at $150 I jumped in and it was mine for $10 more. Crazy cheap.
-The other Savage was one that really got my pulse going. And it brought out my nemesis: a VA dealer with deep pockets who bids on all the same stuff that interests me. When he walked into the room my heart sank. Any opportunity of getting the Savage for a bargain price flew out the window. But you deal with the world as it is, not how you want it. Time to pull out the big boy pants and do battle.
-What were we fighting over? A very early Savage 1907 in .32ACP. SN 7503 with original high polish finish, metal grips and single notch magazine. I'd peg condition in the mid 90 point range. Easily the nicest early 1907 I've run across. My only 1907 up to now is one of the WWI French issue examples. Not exactly in the finest condition after spending 4 yrs in the trenches. So the goal has always been to find a nice, early example and this one was all that. My line-in-the-sand was $400 but I was willing to stretch it a bit if needed. And I needed to but only by two Jacksons.

-1907 photos. So difficult to photograph these old, high polish finishes. Hard to make out the case hardening of the trigger too. But it's all original and a lovely deep black finish with just a teeny-tiny bit of freckling.

mawkie said:

-Hopped into the SAABaru to attend today's first of two auctions @ Redding in Gettysburg. The main goal was to try and find a hard rubber butt plate for my 1895 Winchester Lee Sporter. Lots of Winchester butt plates but none for my Winnie. But did snag a 50 rd box of ammo for my 1903 Colt Pocket Hammer for cheap.
-There were two other items of interest to keep me there after the smalls were all sold: a pair of Savages. The first to come up was a VG condition Savage 23A Sporter. Excellent original bluing, a lightly sanded stock and an original magazine missing its "button". I've watched for a 23A for a while now but most of these have led hard lives. Don't know what the total production run was but it's not hard to find them. Just hard to find in VG or better condition. So when bidding on this very nice example stalled at $150 I jumped in and it was mine for $10 more. Crazy cheap.
-The other Savage was one that really got my pulse going. And it brought out my nemesis: a VA dealer with deep pockets who bids on all the same stuff that interests me. When he walked into the room my heart sank. Any opportunity of getting the Savage for a bargain price flew out the window. But you deal with the world as it is, not how you want it. Time to pull out the big boy pants and do battle.
-What were we fighting over? A very early Savage 1907 in .32ACP. SN 7503 with original high polish finish, metal grips and single notch magazine. I'd peg condition in the mid 90 point range. Easily the nicest early 1907 I've run across. My only 1907 up to now is one of the WWI French issue examples. Not exactly in the finest condition after spending 4 yrs in the trenches. So the goal has always been to find a nice, early example and this one was all that. My line-in-the-sand was $400 but I was willing to stretch it a bit if needed. And I needed to but only by two Jacksons.

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Don't lose the magazine.

Daggone that Savage 1907 is nice, metal grips too!
That was definitely a Mawkie Price (TM) on it too

Is the dealer from Va the heavier set guy? He bids on everything. That place is usually expensive. Buying off gunbroker is cheaper.

tcc722 said:

Is the dealer from Va the heavier set guy? He bids on everything. That place is usually expensive. Buying off gunbroker is cheaper.

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This.
I don't go anymore because of this. Not that I'm cheap, but why waste my time. I can find better deals elsewhere.

Tall, thin, glasses. Most times he's only there for the guns, rarely the smalls. Yesterday he showed just in time for the first of the pistols which were about 30 minutes into the gun catalog. I know the other dealer you're referring to. He wasn't there yesterday as this auction had little in the way of low-cost stuff that he likes to bid on. And yes, he also bids on EVERYTHING. Does put a damper on things for sure. The funny thing is that he passed on a nice FN 1900 that I thought for sure was up his alley. It ended up selling for $425, pretty much market value IMHO. But there were two rare French Le Francais .25ACP pistols that can bring big money if marketed right and I think he got at least one of them.
The genesis of this are the online bidders who pay above market prices for their wares. If they weren't getting crazy prices they wouldn't be such aggressive bidders (and wouldn't have the deep pockets that allow them to do it). Can't blame them 'cause it's working for them. It's why I've been going farther and farther into the sticks for stuff. In fact I had to give Doug @ Redding a new file copy of my 03 because my old copy had lapsed and it had been at least a year since I last purchased from them.
-BTW, there were some good bargains. The best in my eyes was a Remington Model 8 in .35 Rem that was PRISTINE. Perfect original bluing and VG unmolested furniture. Shocked me when it sold for only $825. Thought it should have brought more (auctioneer Pat had this look like "Where are the other bids?" when it stalled and hammered.). Like most auctions you get the occasional dog fight but this one was sparsely attended and prices were OK for the most part. Phone bidders were mostly focused on the smalls (lots of vintage ammo and Marlin/Winchester advertising stuff). Wondering if the flu season had an impact (lots of coughing in that hall). Makes me wonder what the attendance will be like for the MACA show in three weeks time.

Those are definitely “Mawkie Quality”





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That bluing on the 1907 is amazing!

LKGMADMAX has the corner on nice Savage autos in this forum. I'd like to think this one would be worthy of his collection.

mawkie said:

LKGMADMAX has the corner on nice Savage autos in this forum. I'd like to think this one would be worthy of his collection.

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Looks like you did good, nice looking early 1907! Love the early ones with the metal grips.

Thanks for the comments on my stuff and that would be the quality finish that I would be looking for. During the first two years of production they used a beautiful but very fragile finish, hard to find one that's in good shape. I was lucky enough to snag a three-digit 1908 production with original finish and a couple manufactured in 1909.

I've not been on the forums for a while, good to see some recent Savage activity!

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