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Old September 8, 2012, 11:07 AM   #1
tarusa
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old shotgun

i have an old single barrel shotgun that says on side the tennessee gun. f.h.woodworth chattanooga tn. i would like to know value and something about this shotgun. thanks
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Old September 8, 2012, 11:48 AM   #2
RJay
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Tennessee was a Trade name { Think of Sears ond the Trade Name J.C. Higgins }, either owned by the retail store that sold the gun or sometimes the name is propitiatory to the manufactured of the gun. I hve no record of a Tennessee Trade name for Woolworth but that is not unusual,. from the the 1900's to the late 1940s there were hundreds of trade names in use, most now extinct. Woolworth was a very large department store chain that was nation wide ( they are now extinct except in Europe ). Your shotgun could have been made by several makers, Stevens, Davis Warner, Iver Johnson, Crescent, just to name a few. If you post some clear pictures of the shotgun , it may be possible that someone can identify who the manufacturer was.
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Old September 8, 2012, 09:42 PM   #3
James K
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Tarusa said "f.h.woodworth" but I think like RJay that it is probably F.W. Woolworth. But their headquarters was in PA, not in Chattanooga, and individual retail stores of a chain rarely had guns made for them.

Good pictures of the gun and the markings would help.

Jim
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Old September 9, 2012, 08:08 AM   #4
johnbt
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F.H. WOODWORTH & CO. CHATTANOOGA TN. appears to have been a hardware store.

A straight razor marked F.H. Woodworth (made in Germany) was sold at auction in 2008.

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedi...straight-razor
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Old September 9, 2012, 08:14 AM   #5
johnbt
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It was a hardware store. The text from the June, 1906 Hardware Dealers' Magazine says "F.H.", but the picture caption says "W.H."

http://books.google.com/books?id=NNJ...%20TN.&f=false
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Old September 10, 2012, 01:24 PM   #6
James K
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Wow, great research! Woodworth, not Woolworth, and no doubt about it.

While most "trade" guns were marked with the names of distributors and larger hardware stores, it is worth noting that some makers would put on any name a customer wanted on orders of as few as ten guns. I would think the name "Tennessee Gun" would attract some customers with pride in their state, though the gun probably was not made there.

Jim
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Old September 10, 2012, 06:20 PM   #7
RJay
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Sure fooled me, however it is still a " Trade Names" shotgun. The name was sold in a couple more hardware stores in Tenn.
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