doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Winchester 21 Interest

I think there are some tall tales being spread here. The gunshop would realize that any model 21, even one dragged behind a pickup truck for 5 miles, would be worth more than $525. This one, as "ruined", because it has history, is unique, and very well engraved could be worth tens of thousands. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
js

OK...OK...Well I was juusta a practicin on what I was gona tell the wife.
All kidding aside, I really like this 21. I had put the word out about 5 years ago, I was looking for a 21. This was the first one I found locally. I was not expecting to find one like new and engraved. I wanted a skeet model but would have settled for anything I could afford. I bought the gun the minute I saw it. Only after I made the deal did I find out it came with a case. I also did not know it had any providence.

Phillip, PM sent. If it does not come through, please contact me. tbuffum@bendbroadband.com

Give us more closeup pictures of the engraving. The gun has a greater quantity of stippling than we would expect from Arnold, but you never know. Some posters on the rifle section of Dave's forum have indicated that they don't appreciate Arnold's work as much as some people do, but to each his own. John Amber promoted Griebel as did Prudhomme, but I guess there are better engravers today.

As a postscript to me earlier post, Don obliquely hit on a couple of interesting points about the 21.

When the 21 came out the other double makers were mostly belly up and gasping for air. Incredibly, Winchester sold a realtive ton of 21s in the thrities, depression be damned. Evidently people were impressed.

Trapshooters may be the pickiest of the lot, and a good number of well known trapshooters cashed out their Parker/Smith/whatever in favor of the new 21.

Ultimately, the M21's place in history was secured when Winchester decided to keep the 21 in production on a semi-custom basis, and then on a custom-only basis long after the profitiability had faded into memory.

Ithaca5E, I don't know about your assessment of Winchester's 1930's success with the 21. I have Hudson's Sporting Good and Sloan's ads from the mid thirties where they were offering Model 21s in all gauges for $39.50. That was at least $20 less than retail, so getting rid of the new gun couldn't have been easy. Winchester may have built a ton of Model 21s early on, but apparently they gave them away rather than selling them.

Eight - very well could be. I'm just impressed with the number of guns they made before the war, being the new kid on the block and all, verses what the other maufacturers were turning out. Was it the shooters themselves or Winchester that got all those guns out there? Fun to ponder.

Regardless, I think it is very telling that within just a few short years the M21 had a fairly high profile at the traps.

Some, like Cap Grier, were on the Winchester payroll. He surely did a lot for promoting the Model 21 at the traps, but he, like some others, shot the Model 21 because they got help.

I guess I'm just a bit callous, but the number they made (12000 to 15000) from 1931 to 1942 doesn't sound too impressive to me. Hell, there were only slightly over 30000 Model 21s built over the total time that they were offered.
A 1000 or so guns per year is not very many as far as I'm concerned.

If you have every shot trap with a M21 trap gun, you would know why! Probably the best handing SxS Trap gun ever made.
The first time I ever shot trap with a SxS (almost 50 years ago!) it was with a M21 and I broke a 24/25. I had to really concentrate on some besides the targets because the gun had something I had never used before, a release trigger! Now that took some getting used too, but the gun handled like a dream.