As Fin2Feather said, most of what one gets in a Callahan letter on a Sterlingworth is a regurgitation of the catalogue listing. Sterlingworth 12-gauge 30-inch weights, in reality, vary far more than the 7 1/2 to 7 3/4 pounds given in the Philadelphia catalogues. Number 119467, card shown above, is original butt plate to muzzle and weighs just a shade over 7 pounds. Likewise, sometimes, as on the cards shown above, the chokes are penciled in, but just as often they are not, and what you get is that the catalogue says a Sterlingworth Standard was full and full. Throughout the Philadelphia years the Sterlingworth Standard was catalogued as full and full. Beginning with the 1931 Savage produced A.H. Fox catalogue The Fox-Sterlingworth Standard is catalogued as modified and full. More often than not, the Savage historian often doesn't take that fact into account in his canned Sterlingworth letter. Again, the stock measurements are not on Sterlingworth cards so you get what is in the catalogues, and it was my experience that Roe Clark never took into account the fact that during the Philadelphia years the Sterlingworth Field and Brush came with 3-inch drop-at-heel while the Standard and Trap came with 2 3/4 inch drop-at-heel, but beginning with the first Savage produced A.H. Fox catalogue all four were listed with 2 3/4 inch drop-at-heel. Roe missed this fact with two letters on very late Fox-Sterlingworth Brush guns for me.
As for Cody, what more information could they provide than is on the cards? Just 'cause you put bad information in a fancy letter doesn't make it any better.
Again, imho, the real rip-off in "letters" is Colt. $100 for a letter on my 1883 and it says the stock is "wood" and the finish is "blue". The only thing blue on the gun is the trigger guard, top lever and butt plate screws. Their form letter is obviously oriented to their hand guns.
Last edited by Researcher; 10/18/12 07:26 PM.
