Lot Essay
WINCHESTER RECORDS
The Cody Firearms Museum, Cody, Wyoming has kindly forwarded the following information for Model 1873 No. 256170, as entered in the Winchester factory ledgers:-
received in warehouse Feb. 13th 1888
.44 calibre (.44-40)
round barrel, 20in. length
plain trigger
case hardened (including frame) and blued
X stock (fancy wood and finish)
½in. shorter stock than standard
smoothbore barrel
shipped from warehouse Feb. 14th 1888
SMOOTHBORE RIFLES
Much has been made of Annie Oakley's use of smoothbore rifles, some regarding it as rather too easy. There can be no doubt, however, that the trick or target shooting practised by Annie Oakley required just about as much skill with a smoothbore gun as it did with a rifle. Moreover, there is one very important factor that is usually overlooked. Annie was performing in front of many hundreds, sometimes thousands of people and the use of a rifle with its greater range and momentum, would, in some circumstances have been too dangerous. Buffalo Bill, for example, often used a Model 1873 smoothbore rifle taking a long shell loaded with twenty grains of black powder and about one quarter ounce of No. 7½ chilled shot.
ANNIE OAKLEY
Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moses on August 13, 1860 in Darke County, Ohio. She was born into a poor family and much of her early life was spent 'shooting for the pot'. Her first gun was a Parker 16-gauge supplied with a hundred brass shells and in time, the Katzenberger brothers - proprietors of the store to which she supplied her excess game - gave her a prized can of Du Pont Eagle Ducking Black Powder. Annie gradually achieved local fame for the cleanness of her kills and she excelled in the local turkey shoots, her reputation leading eventually to the match against the man who was destined to be her husband. Frank Butler was one of a number of itinerant sharpshooters who travelled the United States, and the match took place in Ohio in 1881. The bet was $100, a sizeable sum at the time, and Frank was astonished by the appearance against him of a 'little slim girl in short dresses.' Annie won 23 to 21 and a romance developed between the two which was to last a lifetime. They married and Frank Butler became Annie's manager, their early married life being spent as travelling performers. It was at this time, in 1884, that Annie appeared before Sitting Bull, victor of the Battle of Little Big Horn who was, in Annie's words 'about as much taken by my shooting stunts as anyone else ever has been... he raved about me and would not be comforted.' Sitting Bull insisted upon adopting her and he named her 'Little Sure Shot' in tribute to her marvellous shooting abilities.
Her skills took her on to performances with the Sells Brothers Circus and finally to the show that won her her greatest acclaim - Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. At the time, a female exhibition shooter must have been a remarkable sight in such a 'rough-and-tumble' world. Annie would open the shows, 'tripping in, waving, bowing and blowing kisses'. Standing out in her feminine but practical clothes, the diminutive Annie would break clays and glass balls in any number of combinations and with any type of firearm. She would fire pistols from each hand, fire rifles lying prone across chairs or held above her head; she shot from every conceivable position in a manner that, reported the Fall River (Mass.) Evening News 'causes the men to marvel and the women to assume airs of contented superiority'. At one time she shattered a record 4,772 out of 5,000 glass balls and one of her favourite tricks was to fire a rifle backwards over her shoulder whilst sighting in a mirror. She was so good that some thought the glass balls filled with an explosive that would detonate when she fired.
In 1887, the Wild West Show sailed for London and Queen Victoria's Jubilee. Here she opened at Earl's Court, the show generating tremendous public enthusiasm with the English. Special performances were commanded by Prime Minister Gladstone, by Edward, Prince of Wales, and finally by Queen Victoria herself who, asking to meet Annie called her 'a very very clever little girl'. She met Charles Lancaster from whom she ordered the first of a number of guns, including 12 and 20-bores and in the same year Annie went to Shropshire for a rest.
Annie was now known as 'the wonder of both continents... the greatest rifle and wing shot in the world' and in 1889 in the year of the Paris Universal Exposition, she appeared before the French President and assembled grandees. The Show moved on, for a three year tour of Europe, calling at Dresden, Venice, Rome, Vienna, Barcelona and Munich where Annie saved Prince Luitpold of Bavaria from an enraged bronco call 'Dynamite', knocking him to the ground inches from disaster. A second tour of Europe opened in 1891 during which Annie shot the ashes off a cigarette placed in Crown Prince Wilhelm's (later Kaiser Wilhelm I) mouth, thereby, as some later said, missing her chance to prevent the First World War.
The later years of Annie's life were marked by true stardom and the peace that comes from the final realization of one's goals in life. She was able to perform as an actresss, to build herself a new home in Maryland and to escape some of the rigours of the travelling life. Her life, however, was still full of shooting and gentle tuition; she died on November 3, 1926, a remarkable woman.
The Cody Firearms Museum, Cody, Wyoming has kindly forwarded the following information for Model 1873 No. 256170, as entered in the Winchester factory ledgers:-
received in warehouse Feb. 13th 1888
.44 calibre (.44-40)
round barrel, 20in. length
plain trigger
case hardened (including frame) and blued
X stock (fancy wood and finish)
½in. shorter stock than standard
smoothbore barrel
shipped from warehouse Feb. 14th 1888
SMOOTHBORE RIFLES
Much has been made of Annie Oakley's use of smoothbore rifles, some regarding it as rather too easy. There can be no doubt, however, that the trick or target shooting practised by Annie Oakley required just about as much skill with a smoothbore gun as it did with a rifle. Moreover, there is one very important factor that is usually overlooked. Annie was performing in front of many hundreds, sometimes thousands of people and the use of a rifle with its greater range and momentum, would, in some circumstances have been too dangerous. Buffalo Bill, for example, often used a Model 1873 smoothbore rifle taking a long shell loaded with twenty grains of black powder and about one quarter ounce of No. 7½ chilled shot.
ANNIE OAKLEY
Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moses on August 13, 1860 in Darke County, Ohio. She was born into a poor family and much of her early life was spent 'shooting for the pot'. Her first gun was a Parker 16-gauge supplied with a hundred brass shells and in time, the Katzenberger brothers - proprietors of the store to which she supplied her excess game - gave her a prized can of Du Pont Eagle Ducking Black Powder. Annie gradually achieved local fame for the cleanness of her kills and she excelled in the local turkey shoots, her reputation leading eventually to the match against the man who was destined to be her husband. Frank Butler was one of a number of itinerant sharpshooters who travelled the United States, and the match took place in Ohio in 1881. The bet was $100, a sizeable sum at the time, and Frank was astonished by the appearance against him of a 'little slim girl in short dresses.' Annie won 23 to 21 and a romance developed between the two which was to last a lifetime. They married and Frank Butler became Annie's manager, their early married life being spent as travelling performers. It was at this time, in 1884, that Annie appeared before Sitting Bull, victor of the Battle of Little Big Horn who was, in Annie's words 'about as much taken by my shooting stunts as anyone else ever has been... he raved about me and would not be comforted.' Sitting Bull insisted upon adopting her and he named her 'Little Sure Shot' in tribute to her marvellous shooting abilities.
Her skills took her on to performances with the Sells Brothers Circus and finally to the show that won her her greatest acclaim - Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. At the time, a female exhibition shooter must have been a remarkable sight in such a 'rough-and-tumble' world. Annie would open the shows, 'tripping in, waving, bowing and blowing kisses'. Standing out in her feminine but practical clothes, the diminutive Annie would break clays and glass balls in any number of combinations and with any type of firearm. She would fire pistols from each hand, fire rifles lying prone across chairs or held above her head; she shot from every conceivable position in a manner that, reported the Fall River (Mass.) Evening News 'causes the men to marvel and the women to assume airs of contented superiority'. At one time she shattered a record 4,772 out of 5,000 glass balls and one of her favourite tricks was to fire a rifle backwards over her shoulder whilst sighting in a mirror. She was so good that some thought the glass balls filled with an explosive that would detonate when she fired.
In 1887, the Wild West Show sailed for London and Queen Victoria's Jubilee. Here she opened at Earl's Court, the show generating tremendous public enthusiasm with the English. Special performances were commanded by Prime Minister Gladstone, by Edward, Prince of Wales, and finally by Queen Victoria herself who, asking to meet Annie called her 'a very very clever little girl'. She met Charles Lancaster from whom she ordered the first of a number of guns, including 12 and 20-bores and in the same year Annie went to Shropshire for a rest.
Annie was now known as 'the wonder of both continents... the greatest rifle and wing shot in the world' and in 1889 in the year of the Paris Universal Exposition, she appeared before the French President and assembled grandees. The Show moved on, for a three year tour of Europe, calling at Dresden, Venice, Rome, Vienna, Barcelona and Munich where Annie saved Prince Luitpold of Bavaria from an enraged bronco call 'Dynamite', knocking him to the ground inches from disaster. A second tour of Europe opened in 1891 during which Annie shot the ashes off a cigarette placed in Crown Prince Wilhelm's (later Kaiser Wilhelm I) mouth, thereby, as some later said, missing her chance to prevent the First World War.
The later years of Annie's life were marked by true stardom and the peace that comes from the final realization of one's goals in life. She was able to perform as an actresss, to build herself a new home in Maryland and to escape some of the rigours of the travelling life. Her life, however, was still full of shooting and gentle tuition; she died on November 3, 1926, a remarkable woman.