This past weekend I got talked into buying a 1873 Trapdoor rifle to help a gentleman at our club who is dying of kidney disease. It had supposedly looked up the value of the rifle on the net and felt it should be worth $800. I wanted to help but was only going to pay what I thought was a fair and reasonable price for it.
I was told by the guy selling it for him (he is in a nursing home) that his father had had it refinished about 20-25 years ago. Going there I didn’t know if they had touched the metal or not.
Looking at it I could see that the metal was all original, not reblued. Not much case color left on the flip up part of the receiver although there is some on the tang. The refinish of the stock looked nice BUT they lost the cartouche on the side of the stock but the Circle P is barely there.
The sideplate was either buffed a long time ago or rubbed a lot or had a light stamping, the US is half there and the Springfield can only be made for the last couple letters ELD but you have to look close.
The Serial Number is 7964
The bayonet is original and period.
The cleaning rod doesn’t have any rings at the base of it.
The rear sight is Buffington, wonder if I should change it for the correct sight?
I am not sure the age of the shoulder strap, is it original?
The bore was black but is starting to clean up, seems to be some sort of old grease or cosmolineicon in there, the patches continue to come out brown, but the rifling looks strong.

With all the problems I offered $400 for rifle and bayonet and we settled on $450















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