Introduction
Western Trading Post discusses the history of firearms and which ones are collectibles and which aren't.
What is an antique firearm?
By statute that came out in 1968, an antique firearm is one made in 1898 or before or a black powder replica. So why is the cut-off 1898? Because that's the date when everything switched from black powder to smokeless powder.
The difference between black powder and smokeless powder is the former, when fired, explodes in all directions and makes a big puff of smoke. On the other hand, smokeless powders are propellants. Therefore, it has much more force behind it without a big puff of smoke.
And that's one of the reasons why black powder guns are exempt from modern firearms laws.
Anything that shoots a modern bullet cannot be traded without going through the Federal Firearms Law (FFL) paperwork.
However, antique firearms do not need transfer paperwork or background checks. Instead, they're considered a Curio or a Relic by the federal government.
History of the firearm
The oldest gun that has been dated to 1288. The Chinese invented powder and guns. However, the accepted rule is that firearms were invented in the 1300s. So, the antique period covers anything from about 1300 to 1898. That's almost 600 years right there.
Improvements in Firearms
The first major improvement in firearms came about a hundred years after they were invented, and the first device to automatically fire a bullet was called a matchlock. That's touching off the powder with a torch and making it fire.
Then, around 1400, the matchlock was invented. The Portuguese are credited with inventing matchlock; basically, it was a serpentine they would light like a wick or a slow-burning match. They would light it and pull the trigger; it would come around and then light the powder in the flash pan, which was a primer powder, which then exploded the main charge in the barrel.
You could have two hands on your gun at this point; you could light it and then aim. It was great.
So, a hundred years later, the next significant improvement in the early 1500s was called a wheel lock after the matchlock. Here, you didn't have to light it with a torch or a burning match or whatever; it was more of an automatic type of thing, which was significant.
But the wheel lock was very complicated. It was invented in Germany, and those guys were into making clocks and high-tech stuff at that time. And it was almost as complex as the watches and stuff. So it was very complex and expensive to produce.
So a lot of people were still using the matchlocks. So the matchlocks and wheel locks were produced side by side until the technology for producing the lock system became affordable when more people quit using a matchlock.
About 1540 or so, they had a device called the Snap Lock, and then in 1560 or so a Snap Hands. But those were just minor improvements made to the wheel lock system.
The next significant improvement for antique firearms came around 1600 and was called a Flint.
It was the first time where you were cocking a trigger. So when you cocked that trigger, it had a little pair of grips to hold a piece of Flint. And when you pulled the hammer back that had a little piece of Flint, it would fall forward, striking the frizzen.
That would create a spark in the flash pan, which ignited the primary and main charges, making it fire. So it was an improvement, but still a long way from where we wind up today.
Those antique guns were big and heavy. Moreover, they were hand forged by a blacksmith, and accuracy was not all that great.
Firearms of the 1800s
The Flintlock was king for about 200 years, from the 1600s till the early 1800s. Then in early 1800, the percussion system was invented. In this system, there was a little cap with some fulminate mercury in one end, and it would fit over the nipple or cone.
The nipples hollow through into the back of the barrel. So you cock the hammer, and whenever you fired it, the hammer hit the little cap, made the tiny explosion that went through the nipple into the back of the barrel, and fired it. It was a significant improvement; no longer relying on spark.
The weather became a lot less of a factor at that point. So, we had percussion for the first 50 years or so of the 1800s.
Then, in the mid-1800s, they figured out how to combine explosive material and the bullet. They come up with a metallic cartridge. So, then the little mercury explosion in the percussion caps in the back was encapsulated in the back of a metal cartridge. You fill the metal cartridge with powder, and then you see a lead ball at the end of it.
Now the weather's not a factor at all. You can drop your cartridge in the river, pull it out, put it back in your gun, and fire it, whereas even the percussion system was still a little susceptible to the powder getting wet and not exploding. It was a massive improvement over the other systems, but it wasn't foolproof.
Then came some major advances. After the metallic cartridge was invented, people had been working with the idea of multiple shots. Around the 1840s, a guy in France invented a pepper box, where they would load several barrels - from four to six barrels. And whenever you fire it, the barrels go around similar to a Gatling gun.
In 1852, a man named Roland White patented the idea of a revolving cylinder, where you load it from the back with a metallic cartridge. And whenever you pull the trigger back, the cylinder's going around. So now you just need one barrel. So you load anywhere from four to six shots.
As we close out the period of antique firearms, the late 1890s, you have stuff like semi-automatic pistols invented by John Browning. You have the invention of smokeless powder, which is what modern firearms shoot to this day.
If you think about it, if you have a Glock or a SIG or any of these modern firearms today, the grandfather to that was already in place at the end of the 1800s.
There haven't been any huge innovations from the late 1800s to now. Although, of course, guns have become lighter and faster. But, the grandfather of everything we fire today was invented in 1898-1900.
So, if you think about the 1800s, they started that period with a Flintlock and wound up with semi-automatic handguns. So, that's how far they came in that hundred-year period.
The Collectibility of Antique firearms
The most collected firearms from that time period are the Colt single action pistols and the lever action repeating Winchester rifles. That's what every basic collector starts with.
The lever action repeating rifle started with a Henry model that came out about 1860. The New Haven Arms Company made it. And from 1860 to 1866, there were about 14,000 of these made. And this was huge because the civil war was going on. There was an old saying - the southerners would talk about them. "Yankees who had a gun started firing on Monday and didn't quit till Sunday."
Wealthy people would buy one of these and send it to their relatives or whoever was fighting in the war. The US government ordered 1700 more or less of these for trial with their army. And all of those 1700 were inspected by the arms inspector for the union army.
The Yellowboy, the model 66S, made about 160,000 of those. They're relatively expensive, but you can find them. There are probably still 100,000 of them out there somewhere, So they're rare, but not extremely rare.
Model 92 was used in Western movies, so it became popular. Chuck Connors was the first guy to do it. He had a model 92 with a big loop. They modified the lever that wasn't original to the gun because he had big hands.
John Wayne caught onto that real quick, and he wanted one too. So Chuck Connors and John Wayne used model 92s in their movies with that big loop though the period they were depicting might be from the 1870s or 1880s.
And Winchester came out with commemorative models of 92 with that big loop.
At the end of the antique period, Winchester came out with the model 94 - the most prolific Winchester ever. Anyone who grew up deer hunting with a .30-30 or had one of these in the gun rack in the back of their pickup probably had a model 94. It was the first model to use smokeless powder.
Around 7.5 million of these were produced from 1894 to 1900. They still produced them up till a few years ago. So these were very prolific guns. The interesting fact about model 94 is that the first 350,000 were made in what we consider the old west period, before the turn of the century. And therefore, the ones made after the turn of the century don't carry as much value as the first 350,000 that are considered a Curio or a Relic.
The Colt pistol is worth a minimum of $3,500; some people might want as much as $5,000. That's the range. So that's a lot of money for a Colt, that's all right. But, many of these guys are good at taking parts from junk guns, which you can buy for almost nothing, assembling them all, and making it look like it's an original untouched gun. So you have to watch out for that because a junk gun is worth a few hundred bucks; something that's all intact is worth a few thousand.
If you want to get into collecting antique firearms, you don't have to break the bank. You can find things in the $1000 range, which are very collectible, and it's a good entry-level point. But always go to someone who will stand behind what they sell and knows what they're talking about.
Western Trading Post can help you to get into collecting antique firearms or increase your collection. Also, check out this article on the same subject.
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