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Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 3:42 pm
by uhjohnson
Why does the receiver police department lettering look so sloppy

http://www.gunbroker.com/item/570467006

Re: Another POE

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 9:36 pm
by Sebastian21
It certainly is hand engraved by a not too talented engraver. Perhap a employee just did it. The question is, is it authentic? The gun looks OK so perhaps the police dept. just wanted it marked and did not care how it looked. The only way to tell is find another gun from the same department and compair. That might be impossible. You would think somebody making a fake would do a better job. This poor engraving does detract from a quality rifle.

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 7:48 am
by 81police
great observations y'all!

While I have not come across another Nassau County gun prior, I have seen two Police rifles from Brushy Mountain Prison (pictured below). Both of these Brushy rifles are marked in similar fashion with equally crude hand stamping/engraving. A few thoughts...

- Both Brushy Mountain guns and this Nassau gun share very close serial numbers: 47XXX (circa 1949). This is VERY unusual to Police 81's as almost all are found mfg in 1942 or prior. Perhaps the original stamping dies were long gone by 1949???

- This Nassau gun and the Brushy Mountain guns have uniquely and correctly modified barrel locks with retainer screws, a service performed by Remington on "Special Police" rifles only. These guns also have had their magazine indicator assemblies removed, again correct per "Special Police" specs. They also have the longer "Special Police" forearms as well as factory front & rear sling swivel eyelets.

My thoughts are that this Nassau gun is an authentic Special Police 81. It still boggles my mind that Remington would let a rifle leave the factory with such crude markings, but since this example is not isolated, and other features of the gun scream "authentic", I'm left to believe this is just how they did it. I don't believe any of these guns have matching serial numbers either so that's another ?????

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:29 am
by 81police
$4500 with 3 days to go!

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 10:45 pm
by Sebastian21
I think the markings on these guns were done by the same person and are fake. Remington would never have done this crude engraving. Remington had skilled engravers. Some body took orginial model 81's police specials and tried to enhance their value by adding police dept province. If a police dept did it they would have uses commercial hand stamps and did simple markings like SFPD for San Fransico police dept. So if a police dept would not have done it and Remington certainly did not do it then the only thing left is some outside person trying to enhance the value. Look at the Police Gun marking done by Remington and it looks like they used a roll die for POLICE GUN and the had a skilled engraver add the Dept name. On The ones show above the POLICE GUN markings are crude hand engraved not put on with a roll die.

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 6:55 am
by 81police
Sebastian21 wrote:I think the markings on these guns were done by the same person and are fake. Remington would never have done this crude engraving. Remington had skilled engravers. Some body took orginial model 81's police specials and tried to enhance their value by adding police dept province. If a police dept did it they would have uses commercial hand stamps and did simple markings like SFPD for San Fransico police dept. So if a police dept would not have done it and Remington certainly did not do it then the only thing left is some outside person trying to enhance the value. Look at the Police Gun marking done by Remington and it looks like they used a roll die for POLICE GUN and the had a skilled engraver add the Dept name. On The ones show above the POLICE GUN markings are crude hand engraved not put on with a roll die.
Oh man, Sebastian21, I thought about all those things too! What an unusual set of guns, my head still isn't completely wrapped around these three either!

A couple of thoughts...very very few Police guns were made totally without markings. I've seen a LOT of Police guns and maintain a very large database on them, and I've only personally seen 2 authentic Police Gun with no markings whatsoever. So for someone to have 3 of them all within the same serial number range seems unusual. Model 8 Police guns generally have no markings and command just about as high prices as the marked 81's.

Some additional evidence. There exists a rare "Special Police" Model 11 shotgun marked in identical fashion with the same spacing, "State of Tennessee / Brushy Mountain Prison". It is an earlier gun, early 1940's.

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 12:52 pm
by Sebastian21
I think somebody had 2 or 3 police specials and thought to enhance their value by fake police department markings. Fifteen or more years ago model 8's and 81's were dogs on the market. They were heavy, cluckiy guns that did not lend themselves to mounting scopes. You could not sell them. I got my first Model 81 from a punch board in 1957. The model 8, 81, 14 and 141 could not be sold. You could not mount overbore scopes on the 8 and 81 and they were and still are very difficult to load. So somebody did these police department specials trying to make them easier to sell as there always has been a market for police marked guns. I am convinced that the guns are original but all the markings are fake done by the same person.

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 3:46 pm
by 81police
Yep shoddy job no doubt, my 2 cents...factory Police guns, marked by Remington. Totally unmarked "Special Police" 81's are so rare, finding 3 of them would be very unlikely in my opinion. I have been known to be wrong however! haha

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 8:55 pm
by Sebastian21
There Is no way to tell where these guns came from. They may not ever been police guns. They may have been ordered by some private firm, ie a coal company, a mining company or even a large ranch. I am sure Remington would sell these to anybody who wanted them. They even advertised engraved models. I bet those are rare. I know that in the 50's model 81's were hard to sell. Like I said I won my fist one off a punch board so that is how far down dealers were going to, to get rid of them. The 740 was the desired rifle. Lighter, more powerfull, easy to load and could be scoped. Of course the major draw back of the 740 was it did not have class or that feeling of a quality piece of work. That is true today: the 740 is a plain gun that works while the 8 and 81 work but do it with class.

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2016 10:14 am
by 81police
Someone just landed a very unique Special Police 81 for $5025.01!!!

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2016 5:45 pm
by Silvermino
This rifle was posted for sale on Armslist for $2000 as a scam. The posting there went up on 7-23-16, the day before the gun was sold on GB. I responded to the add on Armslist and got the guy to call me. When mentioned to him that this rifle just sold on GB, he said "that cannot be". I told him he was running a scam and he hung up.

He deactivated the Armslist ad before I could get online but I did flag it as a scam anyway.

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2016 6:05 am
by Adam Lee
Silvermino wrote:This rifle was posted for sale on Armslist for $2000 as a scam. The posting there went up on 7-23-16, the day before the gun was sold on GB. I responded to the add on Armslist and got the guy to call me. When mentioned to him that this rifle just sold on GB, he said "that cannot be". I told him he was running a scam and he hung up.
He deactivated the Armslist ad before I could get online but I did flag it as a scam anyway.
John,
that scam you discovered sort of makes you wonder doesn't it? I do hope that "tfarmer1911" the handle of the guy on gunbroker who won the auction will be happy. Does he happen to be a forum member here?

I appreciate your going to the effort to flag the Armslist scam, it is unfortunately so easy for collector guns to be faked and always is a problem. But the new era of digital online auctions can sometimes make things even worse!

Adam

Re: Another POE - Nassau County?

Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2016 5:28 pm
by Silvermino
The scammer has relisted this rifle yet again on Armslist for $2000. I flagged it as a scam again.