I was watching tonight's episode of Antiques Roadshow for Crystal Bridges Hour 3, and they had a cartiridge board for the Winchester guns, including the Repeater from RDR1. Unfortunately, the link here shows last week's episode instead of tonight's, but I did get a transcript for tonight's episode. Here's an excerpt:
GUEST: This is a Winchester W. Shell board. My great-grandfather received it from a family friend, and it hung in a pool hall and, uh, sporting goods store. And then it slowly made its way into the family home. So my grandmother had it in her house probably until 20, 30 years ago. It survived a house fire, and then I wound up with it about ten years ago.
APPRAISER: Well, you're right on the money. It is a Winchester cartridge board, Winchester Repeating Arms, founded by Oliver Winchester in 1866. He would go on to lead the company through 1880. When he died, his son had been the intended heir to take over the company. He unfortunately passed away three months later from tuberculosis. The most notable name to come into the picture after that would be John Browning, who wasn't direct operator of the company, but essentially he was providing all these new amazing models to Winchester that really continued the namesake of Winchester for putting out the best of the best.
So I think what this represents is the golden age of advertising for American firearms. And this was a time when they were in extremely high competition with Remington and, and other firms. And they made pieces like this, so when you walked into your local hardware store, you were impressed. It features over 160 individual pieces I count in total. It does have a few missing pieces. I don't think that hurts it too much. It does still retain the most prominent shell of importance, which is the .70-150 there cartridge right at the top center, which had originally been intended for the 1873 Winchester shotgun. However, it was never actually used in a Winchester firearm. It went on to be used for three firearms, none of them being Winchesters. So a piece that is-is truly rare. And you've got pieces here that range all the way from BB caps to primers, all the way up to this massive 4 gauge shotgun shell. And just an im-impressive abundance.
The sign is made on a thick piece of board with a lithograph image. And so you see a Native American guide there on the left. Both of the hunters there adorned in Hudson's Bay blanket Company's blankets as they shoot over a log at whatever target they're aiming at. The image on the right is almost Frederic Remington-inspired, of a soldier, presumably, leaning over his dead horse in combat, shooting over that, and then these lovely ducks there in the center, so you've kind of got representations of big game hunting, um, combat and then water fowling, which really ties the piece together. This is the original frame, but this inner frame here would have originally been an aluminum color, more so, and somebody came along and repainted that at some point. We don't know exactly how many of these currently exist, but it can't be more than a couple dozen at best.
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: This particular piece dates to 1890, and we can tell that because there was a later version that dates closer to 1895 that would have had additional smokeless powder variants that came out in 1893. If this piece came up for auction in today's market, um, I would assign what I believe is a conservative presale estimate of $10,000 to $15,000.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: And I would place an insurance value on it of $25,000.
GUEST: Wow. That's pretty awesome. (chuckles) So I think it's gonna stay in the family. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: If it was one of those slightly later versions, those are the ones that you likely see, they're a little bit pricier.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: There's only, you know, four or five known in existence, and they've soared to as much as $45,000.
And here's the link for the supposed episode, which I got the transcript from.
