newly acquired 1884 trapdoor, serial number does not match data I've seen

[Dick Hosmer]

You have a perfectly correct, though never so marked, "Model 1888" rod-bayonet rifle. Normally such guns have serials over 500,000, but at the very end of production, when "sweeping out the shop" so to speak, ANY wide (96,300+) receiver was utilized. "US Model 1884" is the correct block for that version of the trapdoor.