Need a little assistance. I believe a Baker Batavia Damascus 16 Ga. followed me home today but there are a few things on it that are a bit confusing.

The gun is in good condition, it has 30" Damascus barrels in what appears to be 3 blade damascus in the star pattern. Chokes are extra full Right barrel being .030 and left .032. Bore in both barrels measures .658 using a Skeets bore gauge. One chamber appears to be 2 9/16" and the other closer to 2 5/8". Gun weighs 6 pounds, 14 Oz.

Now for the mystery that I need some help with.... Ser # is 250,xxx (without an F prefix or suffix),right lock is marked Batavia, N.Y. and the left lock is marked Batavia Damascus BUT the rib is marked BAKER GUN CO. which, it is my understanding, was used by Folsom after they purchased the company in about 1920.

According to what I can find the Batavia Damascus was built from about 1907 to 1912, that leaves a 7 year gap between when it was discontinued and Folsom bought them so I would think this would rule out an assembly from old parts... The forend, forend wood, action water table and trigger guard are all the same serial number.

The next item of curiosity is that the length of pull is 13 1/4". At first I thought it had been cut down as 13 3/4" is the shortest that baker was suppose to have put on the Batavia. But after looking at the factory buttplate which is a black plastic and appears to be correct based on the age and condition of the gun the border around the buttplate appears to be even on both sides with word BAKER well centered. So that leads me to believe that the buttstock was shortened when the gun left the factory...

So I am confused. Is it a Baker gun, Folsom gun or ????? The 250,xxx ser # sounded a bit high for a gun whose model was only made for about 5 years yet from what I found Folsom never made the Batavia Damascus.

I don't have a way to post pictures at this time, if someone wanted to send me their email address I could shoot some photos and email them to them for posting.

This is a nice gun, color case in the action has gone silver but the barrel colors and pattern are good. Bores have some minor pits, nothing that appears so deep as to hamper shooting the gun with light loads. Wood has flat top checkering and some figure, a few dings but nothing out of the ordinary for a 100+ year old hunting gun.

Would love to hear your thought...

Thanks in advance for your inpuot..
WBLDon

Last edited by WBLDon; 07/17/18 03:10 PM.