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LOT 3022
Historic, Documented, and Highly Desirable Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Shipped
Special Order Smoothbore Winchester Model 1873 Lever Action Rifle with Factory
Letter - Serial no. 634343B, 44 WCF gauge, 24 inch octagon bbl., blue finish, walnut stock.
Manufactured in 1908, this is an example of what appears to be a standard configuration
Winchester Model 1873 rifle, however the final shipping destination and configuration
of this specific rifle are anything but standard. The included factory letter lists the rifle in
.44 caliber with an octagon smoothbore barrel when received in the warehouse on 23
September 1909, shipped the same day to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in Shawnee, Oklahoma,
and charged to Cody, Bailey, and Lillie of New York. Winchester Model 1873 rifles with
factory smoothbore barrels are very scarce despite their popularity with exhibition
shooters around the turn of the century. On p. 549 of “Winchester’s New Model of 1873 A
Tribute Vol. II” by James D. Gordon, he lists only eight known examples verified by factory
ledgers out of the 3,800 guns surveyed. If those numbers are extrapolated out over
the total production of 730,000 Model 1873s, it equates to approximately 0.2% of total
production being made with factory smoothbore barrels.
