I would be interested in learning more about the Bay City connection, too.
From a Google search:
Second story:
As some of you may know, I collect early Marlin lever action rifles. Friends look out for my interests, and one "very good" friend stopped by to tell me he had seen an old Marlin with a Swiss buttplate at a local shop that was closing it's doors. He said it was in a "barrel of clunker guns", and had a tag of $400.
This was on a Sunday, so I couldn't go look until Tuesday when the shop opened. Didn't expect much as it had been almost a week since he'd seen the gun, and often these leads turn out to be something mundane or not even close.
Still by noon Tuesday I couldn't work any longer, as I just couldn't get this tip off my mind. I left work early and headed to the shop. Upon entering I casually looked all around and found no "barrel of clunkers", so I started to leave. As I turned around, there was the barrel, and sure enough there was a Swiss buttplate! I walked over to the barrel and pulled out a model 1881 Marlin with deluxe 4X wood, checkered, pistol gripped, swiss buttplate, and cased receiver. All very special features, and when I turned the price tag over it read, $400!
I went to the counter and paid the man. He wanted to do paperwork, but I reminded him that no 1881's were built after 1895, so it was cash and dash! When I got home I looked the gun over closer, and to my surprise....anothr rollstamp on the barrel! This one read, "E. FLUES BAY CITY"
After 18 months of research, and a lot of phone calls, letters, etc. I discovered this gun was customized by a gunsmith named Emil Flues, who had a shop in Bay City, Mich. in the 1900 era. Mr Flues was a young man of around 18-20 years old when he restocked, cased, and engraved the screw heads on this deluxe 1881. It was done for a judge in Saginaw, Mi. who was a member of the schuetzen club that Flues belonged to. Flues was secretary to the club, and did a number of guns for club members.
It turned out that Emil Flues was quite the talent, especially for shotguns, and was later hired as a designer for Ithaca Gun Co, where he worked for 30 years until his retirement. (Those familiar with shotguns, or Ithaca might recognise the Ithaca-Flues model name?)This 1881 was one of his earliest efforts, and truly showed at a young age his future capabilites. The whole time Flues worked for Ithaca he had his own business at home building beautiful custom SxS shotguns, and at age 90 when he died he was still working on his last gun!
Hope you enjoyed these two stories of fortunate finds for me!
