House brands

[tombogan03884]

In another thread Tim and TAB mentioned having "Western Field" long guns.
Western Field, "Ted Williams" and several other brands were brands sold by companies like Sears, Montgomery Ward, and Western Auto. They were name brand arms with a custom roll stamp for the distributor rather than the standard manufacturers markings.

Here is a listing that will allow you to find out who actually made your "house model" gun.

Sorry for just the link, but it's a 53 page PDF.

http://8sgarage.com/Armory/Rifle/Data/Manuals/Store%20Brands%20Manufacturer%20cross%20Ref.pdf

[billt]

I've often wondered just how much Ted Williams actually made lending his name to Sears for their guns?

[tombogan03884]

Searched quick but no results .
I doubt it was much by today's standards, I can remember when he was doing bread commercials for a local bakery.
It was also around the time Joe Namath was the highest paid football player in history at $100K per year.

[billt]

I read somewhere that Richard Petty signed a lifetime contract with STP back in the 60's, that paid him millions to wear that little STP sticker on the bottom corner of his sunglass lenses.

[tombogan03884]

$250,000  in 1972

http://www.stp.com/stp-and-racing/richard-petty/always-an-stp-man/

[Sponsor]

[kmitch200]

There is also a "Store Brand Crossover Listings" near the back of your copy of Fjestad's Blue Book of Gun Values.

Anything with a Sears brand, Western Auto or Western Field could have been made by LARGE number of companies from Winchester to Antonio Zoli.
The most likely suspects though were Savage, Stevens and Mossberg.   

[tombogan03884]

Another source is the back of a Numrich catalog.

[TAB]

thanks!  right click save   

[Timothy]

Pretty sure mine was a Mossy 500 model...

[alfsauve]

I've got my Montgomery Wards 30-30 lever action made by Mossberg.  Ain't much to look at, but shoots pretty straight.