M1917 Furniture

Quote:

Originally Posted by martin08

"Stock. The three manufacturers, Eddystone, Remington and Winchester applied their initial, E, R, or W, to the fore-end of the stock. Winchester often also applied a Winchester Sub-inspector's number as well.

Stocks made by other firms were designated for markings as follows: N for New England Westinghouse, B for Remington Arms U.M.C. Bridgeport, V for Victor Talking Machine Co., and A for Wood-Art Machine Co. (4) this was after the Armistice, when contracts were being cancelled.

Whether stocks made by other firms were actually used on accepted rifles is not known by the author."

This information can be found on page 89, Ferris.

Martin--

Ferris is a great book. but a lot more of research needs to be done. My feeling is that in order for Eddystone to maintain the production levels for the M1917 additional subcontracts had to be used. Especially in the production of rifle stocks both the Victor Talking Machine Company and Wood-Art Machine Co. are local to the Eddystone Rifle Plant. Victor is located in Camden, NJ and Wood-Art Machine Company was incorporated in Wilmington , DE an registered as a "foreign" corporation in Philadelphia, PA. It is my understanding that their factory was located in Woodbury, NJ. Victor built expensive record players which had high quality wooden cabinets. Victor would later become Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and world leader in electronics. The building location stills stands today in Camden and has expensive apartments. The Wood-Art Machine Company factory location would later become vacant and a company called "Forway Industries" would occupy the location. The company was closed after it became involved in the Iran-Contra sandal with Ollie North. The location was completely upgraded with much of the original outsides remaining in appearance.

As I was saying there is a lot of information that needs to researched on the Eddystone M1917 not just wooden stocks but the production of the Eddystone M1917 itself. Its hard to believe that none of the gun writers have written on the Eddystone production especially considering the volume of weapons made in such a short period of time. I guess stories on the Springfield M1903, red-headed step child does not sell. LOL!!