Winchester Model 1894 (Model 94) serial numbers by year, pre-64 cutoff

What year was your Model 94 made?

Need help finding the serial number?

Look up a serial number and print a one-page record sheet: the date and its sources, the status by age, the model in brief, and the auction price range.

Does the barrel say Made in Japan, or does the serial number have letters in the middle? Then it is a modern reissue with its own numbers. How to tell an original from a reissue.

Winchester Model 94 value: what it sells for at auction

Enter your serial number above to highlight the price categories that fit the estimated date and see recent sales of this model in those categories.

These prices come from 837 Winchester Model 1894s sold individually at Rock Island Auction Company (201), Morphy Auctions (225), Poulin Auctions (243), and Redding Auction Services (168) between Sep 2023 and Sep 2026. The age-group rows use the auction companies' categories: antique, curio and relic, or modern.

The typical price is the middle price, also called the median. Half sold for more and half for less. The middle 50% range leaves out the lowest quarter and highest quarter of prices. The wider 80% range leaves out the lowest tenth and highest tenth.

We leave out listings described as deluxe, special-order, engraved, restored, or commemorative, and other exceptions in the value guide. Commemoratives are priced on their own page. Wear, repairs, original parts, and factory upgrades can make a particular gun worth more or less. These figures are a comparison, not an appraisal of your gun. Looking for a 30-30 Win Model 94? These rows combine all ammunition types listed for the model. They do not give a separate price for 30-30 Win.

Prices by version

Sales whose listing names a version, grouped by that version, such as rifle or carbine (a shorter rifle). These rows combine all ages.

Prices by caliber

The cartridge or gauge can change what a Model 1894 sells for. These rows use the 414 sales whose listing names one, with old and new names for the same cartridge counted together (the .30 WCF is the .30-30). They combine all ages.

Prices are in US dollars and include the buyer’s premium, the auction company’s fee added to the winning bid, where the house charges one; Redding charges none. They are not the amount the seller receives. A dealer’s offer or private sale price may differ. The full picture, model by model →

Pre-64 or post-64?

Pre-64 means the Model 94 as made before Winchester redesigned it in 1964. Winchester Arms Collectors Association historian Bert Hartman puts the last pre-64 serial at 2,600,011. Numbers 2,600,012 through 2,699,999 were skipped, and the redesigned rifle began at 2,700,000.

The tables on this page date numbers above 2,586,000 to 1964, and Madis's table prints 1964 straight through the skipped numbers. A rifle numbered 2,586,001 through 2,600,011 can carry a 1964 number and still be the pre-64 design: the cutoff is about the design, not the calendar year. A table year alone does not prove a rifle has its original parts. Also compare the rifle's features:

• The 1964 redesign changed the receiver, the main metal body behind the barrel. The screws that hold the receiver together sit in different places on the two designs, so comparing yours with a known example settles most cases.
• If a seller's pre-64 claim conflicts with the number or the receiver features, have the rifle checked before relying on that claim.

Source: WACA historian's explanation of the 1964 changeover.

How to tell a pre-64 Winchester: the Model 70 and Model 94 side by side

Where the serial number is

On the underside of the receiver, the metal body just in front of the lever.

Winchester Model 94 serial number: where it is and how to read it

Why the sources give different years

How accurate are these tables?

Winchester Model 1894 serial numbers by year

The full Model 1894 serial number chart, one table for each source available here. Each row gives the numbers that source assigns to a year. Both the first and last numbers are included.

What to know about Model 1894 serial numbers

• George Madis's tables are badly off for the early years. For serial numbers below about 300,000, the factory records at the Cody Firearms Museum are the more reliable source.
• The two sources disagree about the pre-1899 antique cutoff. George Madis's tables put it at 147,684. The factory records at the Cody Firearms Museum put it at 53,941. That is a gap of 93,743 serial numbers.
• A rifle with a serial number between 53,942 and 147,684 may not really be a pre-1899 antique, even though George Madis's tables list it as one.
• The record date is the date the serial number was stamped on the receiver. It is not necessarily the date the rifle reached the warehouse or the date it shipped.
• Some Model 55 and Model 64 rifles were numbered in the same sequence as the Model 94, with nothing to tell them apart. So neither the range covered by the factory records at the Cody Firearms Museum nor any later highest serial number is a count of Model 1894s alone.
• The OldGuns list runs through 5,103,249. That is how far the list goes, not a final production total for all eras.
• The redesigned Model 94 of 1964 started at serial 2,700,000. The pre-64 design ran through 2,600,011, and numbers 2,600,012 through 2,699,999 were skipped on purpose. Numbers above 2,586,000 were stamped in 1964, so a 1964 date alone does not make a rifle post-64.
• Serial 3,500,000 was not built in the normal order. Winchester says it was held back until 1979 and sold at auction.
• No official Model 1894-only production total exists for all eras. The published final serial numbers include other models, commemoratives, reserved numbers, and later production that the factory records at the Cody Firearms Museum do not cover.
• Winchester's own customer-service list is a retyped compilation, not the original records. The list itself says that no complete original serial record from 1866 onward is known to exist, and that some of its figures are estimates.
• The rows for 1942 to 1953 in George Madis's table come from a published reprint of his table, not from the book itself. They have not been checked against the book.

Other Winchester lever-action rifles

• Model 18661866–1898
• Model 18731873–1924
• Model 18921892–1941
• 94221972–2005
• Canadian Centennial1967
• Model 531924–1932