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LOT 72
Outstanding Civil War U.S. Spencer Model 1860 Army Repeating Rifle with Sling and Bayonet - Serial no. 9881, 52 Spencer cal., 30 inch round bbl., blue/ casehardened finish, walnut stock. This is an outstanding example of a Spencer Model 1860 Army rifle that was manufactured by the Spencer Repeating Rifle Company of Boston, Massachusetts c. 1864. The rifle has a 30-inch round barrel with seven-shot magazine tube in the stock. The barrel has a steel block front sight that acts as a lug for a socket bayonet and a dove-tail mounted folding leaf rear sight with 800 yard center notch. Sling swivels are mounted on the middle barrel band and butt. The top of the receiver is roll-stamped “SPENCER REPEATING-/RIFLE CO. BOSTON MASS./PAT’D. MARCH 6, 1860” in three lines. The serial number is roll-stamped on the top of the receiver behind the ejector cut-out. The left stock wrist is vertically stamped with the Ordnance Sub-inspectors boxed script “HHH” cartouche and the Ordnance final inspector’s box script “DAP” (Dwight A. Perkins) cartouche. A small “H” sub-inspection mark is stamped on the left barrel flat. The rifle barrel has a military blue finish and the forearm cap, barrel bands, receiver, hammer, trigger, lever and crescent buttplate are color casehardened. The stock and forearm are oil-finished American walnut. Includes a correct period leather sling and socket bayonet with “L” inspection mark. The Spencer rifles and carbines were the most successful repeating long arms manufactured during the Civil War. Some of the first Spencer rifles were carried in action at Gettysburg by troopers of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade led by Brigadier George Armstrong Custer. The Spencer rifles were an immediate success; the Ordnance Department purchased 11,470 Spencer Model 1860 Army rifles during the Civil War. This pristine example offered appears to have seen little, if any, use at all.