Trapdoor Rifles

Going to skip the well-known rarity of the 1868-dated arms, of which 133 has been the highest known for many years - and to which we have arbitrarily set 150 as a reasonable upper limit.

Want to discuss the 1869-marked guns, of which I believe 219 (corrected) is the lowest presently known. The 1870-stamped guns are the most common, by a huge margin, and thus are of limited interest - if one has a '68, the odds are that it is dated 1870.

So, what are the highest known "1869", and the lowest known "1870" numbers? Since the parts are totally interchangeable, this will not be an exact science, but rather dependent on known provenance, perfectly matching color between block and receiver, etc. There will be some overlap, which will of course include both "bubbas" and legitimate replacements. This is just for grins - it may not produce meaningful data, but let's see what we get . . .

I feel like I've seen a bunch of 70s in the 10Ks, and a fair number of 69s in the 20Ks. There's a huge overlap. And bubba is almost certainly deeply involved in the issue on some. Off the top of my head I can't think of any 69s in the 30K range; there are some 4 digit 70s scattered out there.

A 69, 22083 https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/67 ... door-rifle

A 69, 21565, note the rear sight https://www.gunbroker.com/item/991756921

A 69, 21814 https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/67 ... conversion

A 69, 27205 https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/67 ... door-rifle

Allegedly a 70, 8821, photos not good enough to confirm https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/11 ... -1863-havi

Allegedly a 70, 1568, photos not good enough to confirm https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/10 ... -trap-door

A 70, 9627 https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/45 ... sket-rifle

Yeah, nice sight (to say nothing of the vice-marks)! To me there is no point in including something like that POS in any sort of survey.

Thanks for looking though. I realize it is a near hopeless task. I did not say so, but I was intending that only right-looking guns be evaluated. If we are to go by the numbers produced, the 1869s should die out in the mid teens. Perhaps they just didn't care, a la the use of 1873 blocks well into the 1884 period; or the gene pool has been so polluted that we are unable - at this distance - to sort the wheat from the chaff.

IF I were to buy an 1869-dated rifle (was once looking for a really nice one, equal to my 1868 and 1870, to recreate Graham Burnside's 1957 trifecta photo in Shooting Times) I'd definitely look for one below 15000.

Think I'll head for the workbench . . .