Value guide

What is my Ithaca worth?

Ithaca built the bottom-eject pump shotgun that left-handed shooters have loved for ninety years, and before that some of the better American doubles. The doubles are where the surprises live.

No page can price your gun, and any page that offers to is guessing. What this one does is show you the things that decide the number, so you can look at what you have and know whether you’re holding something ordinary or something worth a proper look.

The Model 37 is common. The doubles are not.

The Model 37 was made continuously from 1937 and ejects through the bottom of the receiver, which makes it instantly recognizable. Most are ordinary. What families do not expect is the earlier double-barrel work — the New Ithaca Double and its grades — and the trap guns, which were built to a standard the pump guns were not. A plain 37 and a graded double look nothing alike once somebody knows to check.

The models that turn up, and what they mean

Model	Made	What it means for value
Model 37	1937–present	The bottom-eject pump. Featherlight and Deerslayer variants, made in quantity, worth working money.
Model 37 Deerslayer	1959–present	Rifled and slug-barrel versions with their own following, particularly earlier ones.
New Ithaca Double	1900s–1948	Side-by-side shotguns across several grades. The grade is where the money is, and it is stamped or engraved.
Model 51	1970–1985	Gas semi-auto. Modest money and often confused with better guns.
Single Barrel Trap	1920s–1980s	Built to a high standard in several grades. These are the ones worth stopping for.
Model 49 and rimfires	1961–1970s	Lever-action-styled single shot .22s. Inexpensive and common.

What to check before anybody makes you an offer

Whether a pump ejects through the bottom, which identifies a Model 37.
On a double, the grade marking and the engraving, which separate several price levels.
Whether barrels have been cut, re-choked or polished thin.
Original finish on the receiver, which on the older guns is most of the value.

And the two rules that apply to every gun on this page:don’t clean it, and keep the box and papers. Removing original finish is permanent, and on the right gun the packaging is a real fraction of the total.

"It is an old side-by-side, they are all worth the same"

American doubles run from plain field guns to highly graded pieces, and the gap between them is enormous. Ithaca, Parker, Fox and L.C. Smith all built ladders of grades, and the markings that identify them are small. Never sell an old double as a generic shotgun before somebody has read the flats and the water table.

The barrels on my old double are loose. Does that kill it?

It reduces the number and it does not make the gun worthless, particularly on a graded piece where the value is in the engraving, the wood and the maker. Do not have it tightened before it is valued, and do not fire it until somebody competent has looked at it.

Model by model

What is my Ithaca Model 37 worth? (1937–present)

Getting an actual number

Condition, originality and configuration decide it, and none of the three can be judged from a description. Send photos and we’ll make you an offer, wherever you are in the country. It comes itemized, showing what we’ll pay for each firearm, so you can see how the number is built instead of being handed one figure for the pile.

Worth reading alongside this

Police trade-in guns — department markings and what they do to the value. Engraved guns — factory grade or added later, and why the difference is most of the money. What determines value on any firearm.

Other makers

Winchester, Remington, Colt, Smith & Wesson, Marlin, Browning, Ruger, military surplus rifles, Glock, Beretta, Intratec, Savage, Mossberg, Walther and SIG Sauer.