Very Rare Iron Frame Robinson Model 1872 Repeating Rifle by Adirondack Firearms Co.

Serial #316, .38 RF, 27 3/4" octagon barrel with a very good bore that has mild pitting within the grooves.  This is an unusual iron frame 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.  This particular rifle never had the sheet metal cover installed over the rectangular cartridge lifter, which bears a strong resemblance to those being used by Winchester at the time, and which may have been the reason Winchester purchased the Adirondack Firearms Co. in 1874.  The frame has an overall mottled gray and plum-brown patina with spots of mild surface freckling scattered throughout, and some traces of muted color case-hardening along the edges and underside.  Additionally, there are some small impact marks on either side of the forward portion of the frame surrounding the ends of the barrel pin, and some faint traces of tarnished silver remains on the brass flip-open loading gate.  The barrel and magazine tube retain about 60-70% of the original blue finish, mostly on the magazine tube, with an overall plum-brown patina on the balance, gray fading at the muzzle, as well as silvering along the edges of the barrel flutes.  The barrel is fitted with a period front sight blade and a period rear sight with screw-adjustable elevation.  The walnut buttstock is slightly loose, and has minor handling marks scattered about the original varnish finish.  Additionally, there is an old crack at the left side of the wrist running back from the frame juncture that was repaired by the installation of three small circular wooden plugs.  This is a very interesting example of a Robinson patent repeater, and is in very good-fine 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.