OldSarge79
Sergeant
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2017
- Location
- Brevard, North Carolina
It's like women. Be careful about your first love.
You have a Model 1861 contract musket there, as most were.
Springfield Armory is a government manufactured gun, and are so marked on the lockplate. You can expect to pay more for a Springfield-made weapon than a contract model, but not a lot more.
I'm not so sure about the cartouche on this one.
My best advice is to take your time, do your research and get a better feel for what you want. When I first started collecting years ago, I bought a Model 1863 Springfield at a gun show, but had no idea what I was doing. As time went on I realized that there was no visible cartouche, the barrel bands didn't match and the rear sight was wrong. I have since replaced all the wrong parts with correct ones, but in the end, it's only a gun made up of a bunch of spare parts.....not an original gun. It was not a good purchase in hind-sight.
Spend your money on one that you KNOW is an original piece through and through, at a reasonable price. The price is something you can get a feel for by looking at what's available out there and gauging it by the condition. There are a fair number of Model 1861's out there, mostly contract pieces, so it won't take long to learn your way.
Obviously, like Lanyard Puller said, shipping will be a factor. No need to rush. There will still be plenty of them available later on. They are actually slowly going down in value as time goes on.
Bringing the