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AS PICTURED AND DESCRIBED IN THE BOOK WINCHESTER'S NEW MODEL OF 1873, VOL. I BY GORDON
T.A. was heavily involved in the railroad project and surveyed the right of way for the project. He had a home adjoining his father in Pittsburgh at Negley Avenue
and Pennsylvania Avenue in Pittsburgh’s East End. He married Mary C. Caldwell (1841-1902). During the Civil War, he enlisted and served on the Maryland border after Antietam. He was not destined to take over his father’s bank and opened his own nursery and landscape business when he was 18 and then ran a successful lumber, coal, building supplies, and in real estate business with his brother James named Mellon Bros. in East Liberty. They developed new neighborhoods, selling the land and construction supplies. His second child and eldest son was Thomas Alexander Mellon III, born in 1873. T.A. Mellon died in 1899 after being ill for two years with cancer from smoking cigars and was noted as “one of Pittsburgh’s foremost businessmen.”
CONDITION: Exceptionally fine with crisp engraving, markings and inscription; 75% plus original nickel plating on the frame and furniture, strong original nickel plating
in the protected areas of the barrel and magazine tube, mottled gray patina on the barrel and magazine tube, aged patina on the exposed brass, and generally minor overall wear. The wood is also very fine with a faint repaired
crack barely visible in the wrist, most of the original high gloss piano varnish remaining, some fading visible on
the forend, and scattered light marks and scratches. The follower/follower spring assembly is incomplete, but
the rifle is otherwise mechanically excellent. This is an absolutely stunning John Ulrich factory master engraved Winchester Model 1866 with attractive nickel finish and historical inscription to one of Gilded Age Pittsburgh’s most influential businessmen.
Provenance: The James D. Gordon Collection,
The Peter Via Collection; Property of a Gentleman. Estimate: 60,000 - 90,000
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