Winchester Model 1873 Rifle Presented by the Tibbits Veteran Corps of Troy, NY to the First Company Governors Foot Guard (Serial Number 86598) with Case

The Tibbits Veteran Corps of Troy, New York, presented this rifle as a gift to the First Company Governor's Foot Guard of Hartford, Connecticut. Given on May 25, 1882, at a banquet at Allyn Hall in Hartford, the rifle commemorates the Foot Guard's hospitality during a Civil War veterans reunion the year prior in their home city. Remarkably well-preserved, it bears the signature of John Ulrich (1850–1924), a German-born engraver at Winchester, who immigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1852.

Founded in 1856 by Oliver F. Winchester (1810–1880) as the New Haven Arms Company, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company dominated the repeating rifle market in America and internationally during the second half of the nineteenth century. Following Colt revolvers, lever-action Winchesters were among the first consumer goods mass-produced in factories. Their advanced design offered marked improvements over the handmade muzzle-loading guns that preceded them, including a high rate of fire, good reliability and accuracy, interchangeable parts, and the convenience of cartridge ammunition. Domestically, the Winchester rifle played a critical role in the territorial expansion of the United States, becoming a well-recognized symbol of the Western frontier's closing. Most of Winchester's sales constituted undecorated guns sold to the U.S. and foreign militaries.

Deluxe and customized Winchesters, commissioned either from the factory or independent decorators, were marketed to civilians. Engraved, plated, or inlaid with precious metals, and mounted with premium wood stocks, these rifles were created for honorary presentation, for exhibition at international fairs, or simply for their wealthy owners' private enjoyment. Like Colt's factory engravers, many of the craftspeople who staffed Winchester's Design and Engraving Laboratory emigrated from Germany in the 1840s–50s and employed their native style of decoration featuring Gothic scrollwork populated with animal scenes.