By Terry Wieland
Originally published in the 2024 October edition of Safari Times.
It’s safe to say that no Rock Island premier auction ever comes off without several surprises.
The premier auctions are the big-money affairs held three times a year at the company’s new premises in Bedford, Texas. This is where you might encounter a rifle owned by Annie Oakley, a storied Walker Colt or a gold-plated Walther PPK presented to Hermann Goering.
These auctions last three days and typically sell more than 2,000 lots. Some of the guns have famous (or infamous) associations; others are exceedingly rare, while others claim our attention because they are unique examples of ornate workmanship, such as a jewel-encrusted fowling piece made for Louis XIV. Because of the variety, the potential for surprises — good and bad, up and down — is always there.
On its website, Rock Island publishes its catalog in digital form and the entry for each lot not only includes all the technical and historical details available but an estimate of the ultimate selling price, given as a range ($4,500-$7,000, for example), and the degree of interest, measured by how many times the item has been viewed online.
For prospective bidders, this is all valuable information. But there’s always a wild card.
A few years ago, I was in the audience when an obscure Civil War-era gun came up. The high estimate was $5,000. Bidding started briskly but quickly narrowed down to two guys, phone bidders, who both really wanted it. The final price, including the buyer’s premium, was in the neighborhood of $35,000.
Phone bids are handled by a bank of telephones down one wall, each attended by a Rock Island employee. If an item you want comes up and you look over to see a half-dozen of them, phone in one hand, bidding card at the ready in the other, you know you’re up against it.
The August 2024 premier auction had some interesting items.
One that I particularly wanted to watch was a Boss & Co. 28-gauge over/under, made in the early 1920s, with two sets of barrels. An exquisite item indeed, with an interest rating of “very active” and several thousand views, estimated to sell for between $65,000-$110,000. I was pretty sure it would be well north of $100,000. The final “price realized” (hammer price plus buyer’s premium of 17.5%) was $164,500.
Two items of particular historical interest were a Colt Thunderer and badge that belonged to Pat Garrett, the lawman who killed Billy the Kid. The Thunderer was presented around 1902, long after the Kid’s demise in 1881, while the solid gold badge was presumably made to commemorate it. They were part of a collection of Garrett-related objects, including letters and such.
At any rate, the Colt’s high estimate was $190,000. The price realized was $528,750! The high estimate for the badge was $180,000, and it brought in $235,000. That is a cool $763,750 for the two items. It’s fun to watch if nothing else.
And now we come to the rifle that had to be the surprise of the auction: a pre-64 Winchester Model 70, factory engraved by A.G. Ulrich shortly before his death in 1949.
Pre-64s have been collector’s items since about 1965, and pristine factory-original specimens can bring anywhere from $2,000-$20,000, depending on caliber and rarity. This one (Lot #1427 if you want to look at Rock Island’s website under Past Auctions) was a Super Grade .220 Swift with a 26-inch barrel, fitted with a Lyman Alaskan scope in a Griffin & Howe mount and, ornate as it was, it estimated to sell for up to $90,000.
That would have been significant in itself, but several guys wanted it — and I mean, they really wanted it. Its final realized price was $293,750. If that isn’t a record for a pre-64 Model 70, none of us could remember a higher price and I would be willing to bet the farm no .220 Swift ever sold for more.
Fortunately, I already have a pre-64 in .220 Swift, so I had no real need for it.
Terry Wieland is a writer specializing in fine firearms. His latest book is Great Hunting Rifles — Victorian to the Present. Wieland’s biography of Robert Ruark, A View From A Tall Hill, is available from Skyhorse Publishing.
