Scarce J.P. Lower Marked Winchester Model 1892 Rifle 32 WCF Shotgun Butt

 Serial #204084, .32 WCF (.32-20), 24 inch octagon barrel with a fine bore with strong rifling and light roughness.  This is the Model  1892 rifle manufactured by Winchester in 1902 and sold through J.P. Lower in Denver, Colorado as marked on the receiver.  J.P. Lower opened a store in Denver, The Sportsmens Depot in 1875 selling guns ammunition and sporting goods well into the early 1900's.  He died in 1917 but gained fame as a Gunsmith, and had been involved in the Gun Trade since before the Civil War and enhanced his fame by branding every gun he sold and some he fixed, running guns from the North into the South during the war and generally trying to make any money he could from all aspects of the trade.  His marked guns, ammunition and other sporting goods are now sought after as important historic relics of the American West.  An excellent book Sixty Seven Years In The Gun Trade tells the historical accounts of his adventures.  This Model 1892 Winchester is well marked as one of his guns and remains in very fine condition.  The barrel and magazine tube show about 65-70% of a now mottled gray blue, silvered on the high edges with scattered shallow marks and a small dent on the tube just forward of the band.  The frame, lever and hammer are mostly gray with scattered use marks.  The walnut shotgun butt stock and forearm are both solid with the right side of the stock having a blue glass oval about the size of a dime inlaid.  The forearm has a stable shallow crack about 3 inches in length running with the grain about a third way back from the end cap.  It is sighted with an adjustable buckhorn rear and blade front sporting sight. Included is a Cody zip sheet verifying the features including the shotgun butt.  A very fine turn of the century Winchester on its own that came from a now famous Western gun shop.  FFL or C&R