Fox Collectors

The recent thread on Louis Eisenlohr in the "Fox Paper, Catalogs and Advertising" Forum has had me reviewing pictures of number 35. I have long suspected that neither set of barrels currently with it, the ejectors and the safety slide were present when number 35 was new in 1905. Those wedges of barrel engraving are the open "Pennsylvania Dutch" style scroll that was used on C- and D-quality guns a few years later --
Other early C- and above quality guns have much finer scroll for their wedges of barrel engraving --
The patent application for the A.H. Fox & G.A. Horne ejectors was filed 24 July 1907, and the forearm irons for both sets of barrels are marked "Patents Pending" --
The safety slide on serial number 35 is the style that generally appears on guns starting in the 18xxx serial number range.

Those early guns are gorgeous.

Thanks for posting the pictures Dave.

All beautiful guns Dave! Thanks

thank you again reasearcher

Mr. Eisenlohr certainly had enough of a position in the Fox company to have his gun rebarreled any time he wanted. In my opinion, the barrels that were separated from the gun and came into my possession were made earlier than the barrels that were on the gun at that time. However, Dave is probably right in assuming that neither set was made with the gun. Both sets of the presently installed barrels were probably never together at one time, since they are both 28" full and full as I recall. There would be no reason to have two sets of 28" full and full barrels, so I assume the second set was made after the first set was misplaced or lost. For your information, the set of lost barrels was complete with forend.

The #1 set is 28-inch and the #2 set is 30-inch. From the Julia's catalog listing --

This spectacular shotgun has two sets of bbls, one 28”(#1) choked FULL/FULL and No. 2 is 30” (#2) choked FULL/FULL. Both sets of bbls have tapered concave matted ribs with dbl ivory beads, crossbolt rib extensions & ejectors. The 28” bbls have the std company roll mark of “KRUPP FLUID STEEL MADE BY” on right side and “A.H. FOX GUN CO. PHILA. PA” on left side. The 30” bbls are engraved “KRUPP FLUID STEEL MADE TO ORDER” on right side and “BY A.H. FOX GUN CO. PHILA. PA. U.S.A.” on left side. Bbl flats of #1 bbls are simply marked “35 BC” and inside of ejectors are marked “35”. Bbl flats of #2 bbls are marked “D 35 / 2” and inside of ejectors are stamped “35 /2”.

Hey Dave/Researcher,

Do you know if those two barrels for #35 had the early style fish tail fore end lug and the wide top rib on the barrels?

Just curious.

Thanks

Most of the early guns, which are extractors, have the small square base on the forearm loop --
The web reinforcing that small square forearm loop base is shown on the A.H. Fox & G. A. Horne ejector Patent No. 921,220 --
The picture at the bottom of page 100 of The Double Gun Journal, Volume Twelve, Issue 1, shows the reinforced forearm loops on #35.

That's good to know Dave. Thanks for posting the pictures of the underside of the barrels of #35 showing the base.

Do you know if that gun had the wide top rib? I suspect it did.

My highest SN 12 gauge with a wide rib is A12 #19823.