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However, by the time breech-loading and repeating rifles became popular in the late
19th century, cheekpieces were not very common on American rifles.
The One of One Thousand program was announced in 1873 and more fully explained
in Winchester’s 1875 catalog under the headline “Variety of Arms.” The details of this
section are covered in depth in Edmund Lewis’s book “The Story of the Winchester 1
of 1000 and 1 of 100 Rifles”: “Every Sporting Rifle we make will be proved and shot
at a target, and the target will be numbered to correspond with the barrel and be
attached to it. When one hundred barrels are thus proved, the one making the best
target will be selected and set aside, and another hundred proved in the same way,
and so on until one thousand have been tested and ten targets selected with the
barrels with which they were made. They will then be made up into Guns, in which
each part is selected with the utmost care and finished in the finest manner. They
will then be again subjected to trials for accuracy, and the best of the ten selected
and marked ‘One of a thousand,’ the price of which will be $80.00 to $100.00. The
other nine will be marked ‘one of a hundred,’ and the price will be from $60.00 to
$75.00 each. Sportsmen will readily see that this severe process of gleaning will be
a slow and expensive one, and the result be but a limited number of choice Guns,
and that orders should be given in advance of their wants, or patience exercised with
the necessary delay of filling them.” The program was short lived. In part, the rifles
were simply too expensive for many buyers to justify, and the program also made
Winchester’s regular rifles sound like they were inaccurate by comparison. Winchester
stopped advertising the One of One Thousand program in 1877. That makes this rifle
all the more remarkable. .38-40 W.C.F. was not even introduced until 1879, and the
first Model 1873 in .38-40 W.C.F. was shipped in 1880.
Factory letters from the 1960s and 1970s accompany the rifle and indicate it was
received in the warehouse on September 13, 1892, and shipped on September 14,
1892. The factory records list Winchester Model 1873 number 435498 as a 1 of 1,000
rifle in .38 caliber with a 1/2 octagon barrel, set trigger, checkered stock, pistol grip,
Swiss buttplate, cheekpiece, and casehardened finish. In addition to the factory
letters, the rifle has been featured in multiple publications. This rifle is pictured and
described in “The Winchester Book” by Madis on page 210, “Winchester: An American
Legend” by Wilson on p. 50, “Winchester: The Golden Age of American Gunmaking
and the Winchester 1 of 1000” by Wilson on p. 100, and “The Story of the Winchester
1 of 1000 and 1 of 100 Rifles” by Lewis on p. 82. It is also listed by serial number in
“Winchester’s New Model of 1873: A Tribute, Volume II” by Gordon on p. 378.