Thompson Cherokee Confusion

This was part of the collection I picked up on consignment and this one stumps me.

It came with the .32 Cherokee barrel installed, but it also had this .45 barrel barrel with it you.

I have swapped barrels and both fit perfectly. So I am trying to figure out if this is a actual Cherokee, or a kit build or what....

Also trying to determine value. I am not sure, but with both barrels I am thinking $550 is reasonable? I like to price things to move, not sit on them...then again I don't want to give stuff away either. Hahaha




And here's the second barrel it came with. It's a .45 and has a ramrod with it.

Both barrels are 15/16ths across the flats. The .32 is 24 1/4 from center of nipple to the end of the barrel. The .45 is 27 1/4 from center of nipple to the end of the barrel.

I also haven't seen any Cherokee rifles with a brass nose cap and ramrod channel.

You have a 45 caliber Seneca with an extra 32 caliber barrel from a Cherokee. The barrels interchange, but were different lengths.

SDSmlf said:

You have a 45 caliber Seneca with an extra 32 caliber barrel from a Cherokee. The barrels interchange, but were different lengths.

Click to expand...

Thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate it.

the barrels are 13/16ths not 15. if it was a 'kit gun' the barrel serial # would have a K prefix. besides Cherokee barrels being shorter so were the forends so the underrib has been shortened to fit the Seneca stock.

as for value, you could likely get 500 bucks for it with one barrel. not from me but some people would jump on it for that with the two barrels

nice looking gun by the way.

Cherokee's were issued with a 24" bbl and a stock with w stepped wood forend tip.

Seneca's were issued with a 27" bbl and a brass forend tip.

The barrels of both early versions were not marked with a model names like the later versions were.

Here's a side-by-side comparison pic:

Thank you all for the information. It wasn't my intention to do it in this thread, but a member did make me an offer that I accepted.

Congratulations, you have/ had a TC Seneca in what appears to be very good condition. As stated probably in .45 with a .32 Cherokee barrel both should shoot very well. I absolutely love my .36 Seneca also with a spare .45 barrel it’s a tack driver I think you sold it way to cheap. I value my set closer to a thousand Aussie dollars

gvandersluis said:

Congratulations, you have/ had a TC Seneca in what appears to be very good condition. As stated probably in .45 with a .32 Cherokee barrel both should shoot very well. I absolutely love my .36 Seneca also with a spare .45 barrel it’s a tack driver I think you sold it way to cheap. I value my set closer to a thousand Aussie dollars

Click to expand...

Wow. I didn't know the black powder market was so strong over there. It's probably been about 14 years since I went to Perth buying Maori muskets to bring back to the states for resale. They were dirt cheap back then, somewhere around 50 USD each.

Way too many cheap and nasty BP guns are available here but good quality guns fetch a premium, case in point, when available TC patriots regularly fetch over $1000, the trouble is finding them. What? were Maori muskets doing in Perth?

gvandersluis said:

Way too many cheap and nasty BP guns are available here but good quality guns fetch a premium, case in point, when available TC patriots regularly fetch over $1000, the trouble is finding them. What? were Maori muskets doing in Perth?

Click to expand...

I have no clue. My guess is someone with a massive collection offloaded them at some point in the early 2000s. Pretty much every junk shop and antique store had atleast one. I think I bought home close to 60 of them after a two week trip.