Old Lever Value help

CanadianAR

CanadianAR

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This is not my area of collecting interest but I was approached by a family.

I can’t post pics at the moment, can text.

It’s a Winchester 1894. 34-20 caliber, long rifle, full length mag tube. Dates to 1901/1902
Wood is nice walnut but no checkering, which is odd as it has a tang sight.
Maybe the rang sight was added. I can’t say for sure. Seems to look original to me.

Condition, bore full of ####, I didn’t not take tools to clean and assess so let’s say bore is medium at best.
Wood is good.
Exterior blueing on rec is ok, some wear and pitting. I’d say 50%. Barrel is pretty grey, 25% or less.

The gun is untouched, bought new by the old woman’s grandfather.

Ballpark value? I know without photos, but assume semi rough but untouched, nearly to a fault. And have to assume tang soght not original.

Thanks guys
 
It always would surprise me that someone would pay even $500 for a rifle with a "full of crap" bore. Maybe people do that? I am not sure that I would care about rarety of the chambering - as OP described it, is about useless - is the cost of spending decades with no one looking after it. He described 50% bluing left on receiver and 25% left on barrel. What was done, is done. It may well have been a "silk purse" when new, but is described as a "sow's ear", now ...
 
It sounds like a nice project.
My Friend who was a gunsmith, helped redo a 94.

Reblued the barrel and whatever parts he could,redid the Stock and forend.

Bought it for $250 and sold it $500 or so.
It was a 70s so you know what that was like.. haha

Yours sounds much more interesting.

To bad my friend passed away last week, or I’d be all over this.
He was the brains and I was the brawn… lol

Good luck with it
 
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I think that the condition is a bit better then I estimated. Bore, a mystery still.

But, sometimes bore doesn’t break a collectible. I collect German ww2 guns and honestly I don’t much care about the bores. They are nearly all mint cause of the quality, but still I wouldn’t care of the bore was bad but the rest right.
 
34-20??
Value listed could be in ball park? hard to tell with no picture.
Original finish, no rust pitting, shootable bore could be higher than that.
These guns could be ordered with tang sights from the factory, more common than checkering which you don't see much of on the 94's
I see prices on fair ones dropping, but 80-90% condition are and will always fetch good money
short guns will be more desirable as a rule over long rifles, I find.
I have been out of this game for a bit , so this is just my option
 
Not real sure how that will all work out - I have played with a number of more or less defunct old guns - I think they are back to being "shootable" now - but any re-finishing likely eliminates a lot of dollars that collectors might look for? So, make it as a "shooter" - I think that 32-40 is one of the very hard to get cartridges, even 10 years ago - I think most popular was a run of John Wayne commemorative ammo that was done for 32-40 - I might have the cartridge wrong, but was not a "run of the mill" thing to find, even before the recent silliness.

BTW - if the rifle has never been dismantled, that can be a significant challenge all on its own - to dismantle without breaking old things or damaging screw slots. Then clean up / polish all the old parts inspecting for corrosion or breakage - can re-finish to the extent that you want - and then re-assemble without messing up anything. Good on you if you can pull that off. I could not do that without several reference books and a couple hundred dollars of specialty tools for that work. I think Brownells sells or used to sell a screw driver set for Winchester 94 - 6 different sizes involved??

If worse comes to worse, Brownells at least used to sell a complete set of "new" screws for a Win 94 - was $US 39.99 for that set of 20 or 30 screws - when I bought that in 2017 - no clue what they cost now - the old rifle that I was working on had many of the screw slots really messed up - and the forearm strap was on backwards, etc. - all very visible in the For Sale pictures.
 
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Potashminer said:
It always would surprise me that someone would pay even $500 for a rifle with a "full of crap" bore. Maybe people do that? I am not sure that I would care about rarety of the chambering - as OP described it, is about useless - is the cost of spending decades with no one looking after it. He described 50% bluing left on receiver and 25% left on barrel. What was done, is done. It may well have been a "silk purse" when new, but is described as a "sow's ear", now ...
Click to expand...

I'm kind'a on the side of the fence that says "let the gun tell its own story, not the refinished story somebody wants it to tell" so bore condition is what it is. A "shooter" bore might make a difference in who will buy the thing but shouldn't make much difference in the price for that vintage of a gun.

One question that will make a difference in value is if it is in "carbine" or "rifle" configuration. My asking price for such a described Carbine would be in the 5-700 range & 7-900 in rifle.
 
From your description sounds like a decent rifle still. As long is the wood hasn't been sanded, monogramed or otherwise butchered a decent 1894 rifle in .32/40 should bring in the neighbourhood of $1000. A good working over with JB bORE PASTE has done wonders for a few I've owned that looked pretty sad on first inspection. IMO complete disassembly not required as long as function is not an issue, sometimes a teardown creates more problems than it solves. Just open the action over some cardboard or newspaper and run a full can of Crudcutter or similar cleaner /degreaser down through the action. You will be amazed at the amount of fir needles, grease, lint and owl dung wash out of it. Then relubricate. My 2 cents.
 
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