Robinson Model 1872 Repeating Rifle by Adirondack Firearms Co.

Serial #139, .44 RF, 26" octagon barrel with a very good bore that has minor pitting and freckling within the grooves.  This is a plain, but handsome rifle, built on Orville Robinson’s April 23, 1872, patent, and utilizes a manually-operated toggle lock that rides in a mortise along the top of the receiver operated via a knurled handle on the right side.  The brass frame has an overall dull yellow-ochre patina with a series of small impact marks on the forward portion of the left side of the frame surrounding the end of the barrel pin.  There are some obvious tool marks on the right side with the head of the barrel pin made to fit flush with the surrounding brass.  The bolt, rear toggle, and loading gate cover have an overall gray and plum-brown patina with some faint traces of the original blue on the edges of the bolt.  The barrel has an overall plum-brown patina with silvering at the muzzle and long the barrel facets, while the magazine tube a similar patina but with about 20-25% of the original blue remaining.  A period German silver front sight blade and original rear sight are installed, however the rear sight is bent upwards and is missing the elevation adjustment thumbwheel.  The walnut buttstock is in good shape, with minor handling marks and small blemishes scattered about, a series of impact bruises on the left side below the comb, and some short stress cracks on the left side of the wrist running back from the frame juncture.  This is a really nice example of a rare American repeating rifle, and is in very good plus condition overall.  Antique

Orville Moses Robinson was an upstate New York gunsmith and inventor who received three US patents for breech-loading and repeating firearms.  In 1870 Robinson, in partnership with A.S. Babbitt and two others, formed the Adirondack Firearms Co. to manufacture rifles based on his patents at their manufactory in Plattsburgh, NY.  The firm is known to have employed Daniel Wilkinson (possibly J.D. Wilkinson, another upstate New York gunmaker and inventor)) and Robinson’s son, William (who would’ve been about 10 years old at the formation of the company!)  Adirondack Firearms Co. operated until 1874, ultimately producing what is thought to be slightly fewer than 1,000 rifles of all types, when it was purchased by the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. and permanently shut down.  The Adirondack Firearms Co., and Robinson’s repeating rifle designs, represent an interesting footnote in the then rapidly advancing field of repeating breechloading long guns.