Value guide

What is my Savage worth?

Savage built one of the most advanced lever guns ever made and then spent fifty years building some of the plainest bolt rifles in America. Both turn up in estates, and they are not remotely the same money.

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.

A Model 99 is a collector rifle. Almost everything else is a shooter.

The Model 99 used a rotary magazine that let it fire pointed bullets when its lever-action rivals could not, and collectors track its variations closely — takedown versus solid frame, the letter prefix on the serial, the chambering, whether it has the brass cartridge counter. The bolt rifles that followed, the 110 and its descendants, were built to shoot well cheaply and succeeded. A 99 and a 110 in the same cabinet can be separated by a factor of ten, and the family almost never knows which is which.

The models that turn up, and what they mean

Model	Made	What it means for value
Model 99	1899–1998	The rotary-magazine lever gun. Takedown models, early production and scarce chamberings are the ones to identify carefully.
Model 1895 and 1899	1895–1922	The earliest production, before the 99 designation. A separate and older market.
Model 110	1958–present	The bolt rifle that made Savage's modern name. Accurate, plentiful and ordinary money.
Model 24 combination guns	1939–2010s	Rifle over shotgun. A genuine following, and frequently dismissed as a novelty.
Model 1907 and pocket pistols	1907–1928	Early American semi-autos with a devoted collector base.
Stevens-branded guns	various	Savage's budget line. Honest working guns, priced accordingly.

What to check before anybody makes you an offer

Whether a lever gun is a Model 99, and whether it is a takedown or solid frame.
The chambering. .250-3000 and .300 Savage are the names to look for, and some are far scarcer than others.
Any letter prefix on the serial number, which places the rifle in a production period.
On the bolt rifles, whether the barrel and stock are original or have been swapped.

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 just an old Savage deer rifle"

That describes a Model 110 accurately. It does not describe a Model 99, which is one of the more collectible American lever guns and regularly worth several times what the family expects. The difference is obvious once somebody looks at the action and invisible from across a room.

How do I tell a 99 from the other Savages?

It is a lever action with a solid top and no external hammer, and the serial number is usually on the lower tang or inside the lever. If it is a lever gun with a rotary magazine rather than a tube under the barrel, you have a 99 and it is worth looking at properly.

Model by model

What is my Savage Model 99 worth? (1899–1998)

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, Mossberg, Ithaca, Walther and SIG Sauer.