I have just acquired an old damascus barreled Baker serial number 3538 in 12 gauge. 26 inch barrels that must have opened at one time to cyl/cyl. The chambers have also been opened to 2.75 inches as I would think that these old circa 1890 or so guns would have been 2.5 inch chambered. The gun has a nice bird dog etched on each side of the action. The unusual part is that the old girl has an Infallible trigger that functions great. The gun is properly on face and is mechanically good but a bit rough costmetically. Any info/ideas on model, date of manufacture, etc. To date I have cleaned at least 50 years of grim from the gun and will have it restored after the season. Any info would be appreciated.
Tom

Hammer gun or hammerless?
Pictures would help
Here is a picture the single trigger in my Baker

Your dog look like this?


or like this?

Mike

Mike,
The engraving on mine is not as extensive as the ones in your photos. The bird dogs on mine look much like yours in the first photo but are looking up at the same symbols seen on yours that I call flying turnips. Further, the switch for my barrel selector is on top of the tang near the safety. I have a second Baker with steel barrels with a serial number 6657 that is in excellent condition and has been restocked. It has the same bird dogs on the sides of the action. No grade is indicated anywhere on the gun.
Tom

Tom:

Did you recently get this gun from Ed Lander? If not, he has/had one just like it. Might check with him.

p.s. With the engraving you describe - Damascus = A grade, Twist = B grade
I'm no expert, if I'm wrong on this, I'm sure someone will correct me.

I would guess the Infallible trigger is an after market on your gun. I have a very late Lefever, probably assembled at Ithaca which has an Infallible trigger on it. This one may have been there when built or may not have. The trigger is selectable but does not reset upon opening the gun. Thus if one bbl only is fired & then gun opened & reloaded it will still fire the opposite bbl on next trigger pull unless manually reset. The selector slide on the tang moves to the other position with each trigger pull.

From your description it sounds like you have a Baker Grade "R".



It was a later addition to the Baker line and was in production at the time, 1912 and later, when Lancaster Arms Co. was making the Infallible Single Trigger.

Researcher
Many thanks. Both of my Baker's steel SN: 6657 and damascus SN: 3538 show the identical bird dogs looking up at the flying turnip type swirl same as in the pictures provided above. No birds are on the sides. Do you have any info on dates of manufacture, etc. Both guns have 26 inch barrels and the 3538 gun has the original Baker buttplate with a LOP of only 13.5 perhaps due to the mounting of the single Infallible trigger. There is no evidence that this gun was ever a double trigger shotgun. Any additional info would be appreciated. Merry Christmas to you and to all the board members.
Tom

Tom, both serial numbers of your gun are in the A and B serial no. range. I would guess your 3538 has engraved dogs, rather than etched. I think the Infallible trigger could have been an option supplied by the factory. It was a somewhat better trigger, design wise, than the Baker one. R grades were from a period when Baker marked the grade on watertable.

Daryl,
Many thanks! I was hoping that you might see my entry. Question: Is there in print a book on Baker shotguns? I have noted a difference in the two guns I have. The damsacus gun with the 35XX SN. assembles with a stud on the fore-end iron pushing back s plunger that protrudes from receiver, somewhat like a Parker. The 66XX steel gun has a cocking arm that protrudes into the fore-end arm when assembled and must be carefully pushed back into the receiver when the gun is assembled. Comments on this please.
Regards,
Tom

We are still waiting for Daryl and Chris to write it!!

The Lancaster Arms Co., the maker of the Infallible single trigger, wasn't around until 1912, a few years after Baker had dropped the A and B grades. So, it has to be a retro-fit.

Researcher could be right on the dates. I have had two A Grades with the Infallible trigger. Did not look up the dates of that trigger, but in the back of my head, thought patent dates stamped on the trigger were a bit earlier than 1912.

Tom, the forend "cocking stud" was changed into the one like your later gun somewhere around 1907 , give or take a year.

A later look in my files finds that the first patent for the trigger is in 1906 and refinements in the trigger in 1908 and later. It then appears that the A Grade was made in a time when the Infallible trigger could have been factory supplied. Usually the Infallible trigger had patent dates stamped on it's sides, inside the gun. The question "factory installation" or not could be resolved by viewing these dates.

Alfred Harvey Worrest – Infallible Single Trigger – Lancaster Arms Co

From researching and studying Alfred’s patents it appears that Alfred took an interest in, and began designing his Single Trigger mechanism around 1900 to 1904. His first patent no. 829,453 was issued on Aug. 28, 1906. His application for that patent was filed on May 3, 1904. It is a complex mechanism built into an L. C. Smith shotgun. It shows that he probably had some experience working professionally as a gunsmith because he completely redesigned the L. C. Smith locks, and his trigger mechanism was built as part of the receiver and locks, and not just an added unit. This design had a problem in that it required a large amount of wood to be removed between and at the back of the locks, weakening an already heavily inletted stock head. The gun with this trigger was also probably very difficult and tricky to assemble. This design shows his concept of the switching block which was the foundation of all of his patents that followed, and was a major feature of the highly dependable and successful “Infallible” trigger. Alfred’s second patent no. 871,550 was applied for on Aug. 10, 1906, just 18 days before his previous patent was issued. That patent was issued on Nov. 19, 1907 and the design was built around a “Minier” model Ithaca Gun Co. double. This triggers design had been changed drastically from the previous one removing many of its faults and problems, and the unit was built onto the guns trigger plate. All of the elements of the “Infallible” trigger are found in this design, but it was not a self contained unit. With this refined design it appears that Alfred began planning on making it’s production a commercial venture. The 1912 edition of the History of Lancaster, Pennsylvania states that the Lancaster Arms Co. who were the manufacturers of the Infallible Single Trigger, had been established two years earlier and was owned and operated by A. H. Worrest. The business was located at 126 E. King St. and the article goes on to state that it was a “well known and prosperous enterprise, his plant is perfectly appointed throughout, and the finest and best class of work is executed”. This not only included the manufacture of the trigger units, but also all kinds of fire arms repairs, and some complete doubles appear with the Lancaster Arms Co. name, but it is unknown if these were made by them, or imported by them and their name added to them prior to their sale. The article goes on to state that Mr. A. H. Worrest “is a gentleman of large experience in this line of industry and thoroughly understands its every detail”.
Following this patent with the next two can be a bit confusing. On June 25, 1909 he applied for another patent which was issued on June 18, 1912 as no. 1,029,781. Then on July 23, 1910 he applied for his fourth patent which was issued on Jan. 2, 1912 as no. 1,013,254. Patent no. 1,013,254 covered improvements to no. 1,029,781 which had not even been issued yet. Looking back you could say that this is a case of the “chicken preceding the egg”. Both of these patents developed the trigger mechanism into a self contained unit.
On Oct. 16, 1911 Alfred applied for his last trigger patent no. 1,029,782 which was also issued on June 18, 1912 and covers additional improvements which brought it to its final form as it was produced. (the above from Larry B Schuknect's book on double gun patents)

I have seen a 1913-vintage Parker Bros. Walter King letter to a customer where he says "As to your request we have removed our infallible single trigger, and installed the double trigger system." I have also seen some evidednce of Ithaca offering the Infallible single trigger prior to WW-I, and I know of at least one smallbore Ansley H. Fox that was ordered with an Infallible trigger before AHFGCo. began offering their Fox-Kautzky single selective trigger. The earliest Baker magazine advertising I've found showing and mentioning a single trigger is in the December 1905 time frame. These ads all show a sliding selector next to the trigger as on Skeettx's gun.
By the 1915 time frame they are offering the Lindsay

The Infallible trigger on my Lefever has the 1912 patent dates on the side of housing, under the wood. The gun itself is sort of a conundrum. It is a Twist bbl H grade having doll's hesd & indicators, but appears to have DS wood & forend. The stock has the uncapped half grip of the DS & the forend wood is lacking any escutcheon or tip ala the DS. It is stamped with two SN's being only 4 digits apart. On both the frame & bbl these SN's appear to have been overstamped from a previous Number. The two SN's are 73338 & 73342, which unless something has turned up recently were the highest two SN's recorded for Lefever. I highly suspect it was put togrther from some of the last remaining parts at Ithaca, possibly by an Employee. An Infallible trigger could have definitely been on hand at Ithaca at the time. Perhaps no Lefever ones were even left.
This of course has no real bearing on whether the one in question was installed inside or outside of the Baker factory, just threw it in.