doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Optimus

Corresponded yesterday with an individual from Kalifornia who owns an Optimus that he believes has been in his family since new (family moved from NY State to Kalifornia after the San Francisco earthquake and fire). It is a very early 30" ten bore, serial number 9954. The gun is complete, remains solid, is unaltered, and looks its age (I'm guessing a manufacture date between 1887-89; although its myriad screw slots remain virtually untouched. As with early Optimus guns this example is not engraved nearly to the degree of later Optimus guns, and it has only one gold inlay; a prancing horse with flowing tail on the trigger guard bow. I've never seen a horse figure on another Lefever, or any other make that I can recall; so clearly a very special customer request. Maybe the original owner operated a circus? The gun features a pivot opener, as opposed to the thumb opener, and has a hand-matted top rib (only the second example I've seen with a hand matted rib). The push button fore end release features a single initial, an "S", which is the beginning letter of the family's last name. Based on our discussion the gun will remain within the family; but, as I assume this is a heretofore unknown example of the Optimus and has a very low serial number, a few of Lefever aficionados here would appreciate having this information. And lest I forget, the word "Optimus" is engraved upon the trigger guard.

Pictures please! The Optimus grades are beyond beautiful.

SRH

Stan
The pics I received were very poor, but if you'll PM me with your email I'll be glad to forward what I have.
Thanks
Tom

When I was doing research on the engravers that were at The L.C. Smith Gun Works, Syracuse, N.Y. and then moved to Fulton, N.Y. when the Gun Works was sold, I had heard of a Optimus grade that was done for President Benjamin Harrison that was engraved by A. Spangler and he had signed the lock plate with his name on it. I didn't have a picture which I thought I did but put a few feelers out and did receive an email back with a picture of the gun and was able to enlarge it and see Spangler's name on it. I was told I could have the picture but the owner wished to remain anonymous.
L.C. Smith hired only the best engravers the Spangler Brothers, Joseph Glahn and his 3 sons and a young Albert Kraus. The Spangler's were the first to go to Fulton for the now Hunter Arms Co. and then the Glahn's along with Kraus. It is known fact that the Spangler's and Joseph Glahn did other work for Lefever and Parker in the early days and possibly others as well.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/pLvT5B1.jpg?1[/img]

That is one hell of a gun.

Brent, thanks for converting to the picture, I was able to do that when I used Photobucket but then they wanted you to pay so went to Imgur.
How do you post pictures for use here?

David, I use Imgur too and I'm not a fan of it, however. Just what I chose when I had to choose something.

In your case, you did some editing of the photo on imgur and when you did, it renamed the photo with adding "?1" behind the ".jpg" part of the file name. Sometimes you can post those just fine. Other times, you have to go in, delete the "?1" portion from your [img] [/img] command and then it goes. That's what I did here.

That is an amazing looking gun.

I've no idea where my copy is, but the Benjamin Harrison Optimus is featured in R.L. Wilson's book "Steel Canvas". I had a chance to see and handle that gun years ago when it was on consignment at the now defunct Atlanta Outfitters; it was a beautiful gun, but in my opinion not as stunning as the Linneman Optimus featured years ago in the DGJ (2001?). Although I've never seen a signed piece, at least one member of the Glahn family engraved for the Syracuse Arms Company based on pictures of pulls found within family archives.

The Harrison Optimus sold very recently very publicly and well photographed by the auction house

https://www.morphyauctions.com/jamesdjulia/item/2429-391/