Rare Winchester Model 1897 Takedown Made in 1898

SOLD to F.B. — A rare antique Winchester Model 1897 takedown, 12 Gauge (2-3/4″ chamber), made in 1898. (Ser. # is C 5365X.) The 30″ full choke barrel has a nice shiny bore! Buttstock has an original Winchester checkered steel buttplate and is in exceptionally nice condition with some subtle figuring. This gun shows no visible damage beyond some very small scattered scratches. Receiver, stock, barrel, magazine tube, and forend show minimal wear for the vintage.  Both the receiver and barrel have a remarkable amount of original bluing — about 95%+.  (See photos.) The magazine tube which because of its design is rubbed by the slide, shows only about 15% original blue. There was apparently a buttstock sling swivel installed at one time, and that oval inlet has been filled with an aluminum plate. (It would look much better with either a walnut filler, or if a sling swivel of the same dimension were re-installed.) The rest of the gun appears original. It is noteworthy that there were more than one million Model 1897s produced between 1898 and 1957. And of those, only the first 63,633 were made in 1898. Of those, I’d estimate that less than 20,000 of the 1898-production guns have survived in shooting condition.  (#AFIU-044)