Kennedy's Win. 94 DOM dates & actual Madis dates.?

Texas Bear

I have only been collecting old Winchester 73s, 92s & 94s for the last four years as a retirement hobby, and I always obtain CFM information on anything I buy and a Letter on what I keep. I have appreciated the information that David Kennedy & Burt H have provided this last year regarding the W94 - CFM dates, & differences from other's DOM's. Being a "numbers guy," I have noticed that the dates attributed to Madis by Kennedy do not agree with those in Madis' book The Winchester Book. They do agree with the dates in Schwing (and others) books & tables. The differences are:

1894: 1674 (CFM); 14579 (attributed to Madis, really Schwing et.al.); 14759 (actual Madis)
Notice the transposing of the "57" and "75" in these dates?

Then in 1933 the dates attributed to Madis start varying from what in published in his book, and by 1936 take a major deviation, for example:
1936: 1119104 (CFM), 1100065 (attributed to Madis, really Schwing); 1,112,194 (actual Madis)
1937: 1158835 (CFM), 1100679 (attributed to Madis, really Schwing); 1,138,781 (actual Madis)
1938: 1198405 (CFM), 1100915 (attributed to Madis, really Schwing); 1,169,370 (actual Madis)
1939: 1216165 (CFM), 1101051 (attributed to Madis, really Schwing); 1,197,211 (actual Madis)
1940: 1259563 (CFM), 1142423 (attributed to Madis, really Schwing); 1,238,584 (actual Madis)

Being a newcomer to collecting, is there some old history where Madis corrected his numbers that other have been publishing, or did Kennedy use the incorrect table?
Any enlightenment will be appreciated. Texas Bear

Bert H.

Hello Texas Bear,

I can not speak for David or where he derived the numbers from for Madis, but I agree with you that they do not match exactly.

I created a table using the PRSRB data and the data that Madis published in numerous places. The serial number shown is the last serial number in each given year. For the years in question, here are the numbers... note that considerably more guns were made than what Madis listed;

1936 (PRSRB) 1118780 (Madis) 1112194 (Difference) +6,586
1937 (PRSRB) 1158835 (Madis) 1138781 (Difference) +20,054
1938 (PRSRB) 1198405 (Madis) 1169370 (Difference) +29,035
1939 (PRSRB) 1216165 (Madis) 1197211 (Difference) +18,954
1940 (PRSRB) 1259563 (Madis) 1238584 (Difference) +20,979

For the years 1894 through 1914, Madis mistakenly believed that a lot more guns were produced that what were actually manufactured;

1894 (PRSRB) 1674 (Madis) 14759 (Difference) -13,085
1895 (PRSRB) 14222 (Madis) 44359 (Difference) -30,137
1896 (PRSRB) 18571 (Madis) 76464 (Difference) -57,893
1897 (PRSRB) 33108 (Madis) 111453 (Difference) -78,345
1898 (PRSRB) 53941 (Madis) 147684 (Difference) -93,743
1899 (PRSRB) 80148 (Madis) 183371 (Difference) -103,223
1900 (PRSRB) 103932 (Madis) 204427 (Difference) -100,495

Throughout the entire Model 1894/94 serial number range for which records exist, Madis was off the mark in both directions by a considerable margin at different times. In the year 1899 he claimed that there were 103,233 more Model 1894s manufactured than what Winchester had actually made. In the year 1917, Winchester had actually manufactured 51,453 more Model 1894s than Madis what was aware of.

In the near future, I will be publishing an in depth article covering this exact topic. My plan is to eventually publish a series of articles covering the Models 1894/94, 55, & 64, and possibly put them all together in a booklet form (which I plan to sell here on GB).

joel_black

Bert,
As I know you are aware that receivers might sit in a bin for many years waiting to be assembled after being made. It would be valuable for you to publish the date the receiver was made in addition to the date of assembly and the date of sale. Both the U.S. and Canada accept the date the receiver is made in determining antique status.

Bert H.

Hello Joel,

Yes, I do agree that a very small number of receivers undoubtedly did sit in the parts bins for a few years, but the vast majority of them were assembled into completed guns within just a few weeks of being serialized.

For all serial numbers greater than 353,999, there are no surviving factory warehouse ledger records (which would have listed the date of assembly and the date of sale). Only the Serialization records (PRSRB) remain for serial numbers 354,000 through 1,352,066, and that only gives us the date the receiver was serialized.

For serial numbers 1 - 353,999, the Cody Firearms Musuem (CFM) has the original factory warehouse ledger books (records), and they use them to create the factory letters that they sell to collectors. Even if I had a copy of the warehouse ledger books, it would not be appropriate for me to publish them. For those wishing to know the exact date that their Model 1894 was assembled and sold, they need to contact the CFM Research Department and purchase a factory letter (or if a CFM member, they can request a serial number search).

What I can provide to anyone who is interested, is the exact month & year of manufacture for all Model 1894/94s in the 354,000 - 1,352,066 serial number range (mid-year 1907 - December 1945), and for serial numbers 1 - 353,999, I can provide the precise year of manufacture and an estimated month of manufacture. During my next trip to Cody, I plan to update my DOM table to include the end of month production numbers for all available serial numbers.