I posted this in the black powder forum but since some here probably don't frequent that section I thought I would also post it here. I won this in an auction back in February.
It's a Springfield Model 1863 type I---produced at the height of the ACW in 1863. These were normally produced with all of the metal in armory bright (unblued) with the exception of a blued rear sight plus the lock and hammer which were color case hardened. Notice this one is blued and besides the normal acceptance cartouches in the wood, it also has a large stamp on the lock side of the stock with the words "Whitney Arms Co" under a spread eagle.
There was no explanation for its configuration from the auction site , and I had planned to remove the bluing and replace the ramrod to restore it to wartime configuration. However, while it was in transit I visited a dedicated civil war site and found out the real reason of its existence.
After the war in either 1866 or 67, The Eli Whitney Armory purchased 6900 each of these muskets---either lightly used or unissued from the ordinance department as surplus. They refurbished them by simply rust bluing all the bright metal and updating the ramrod from the standard tulip tip to one with a serrated jag tip. The idea was to wholesale these to various retailers for resale---possibly to settlers headed west but more likely to military schools and/or GAR honor guard units. From the fact that this musket shows no evidence of having ever been loaded or fired, I am assuming that it went to one of the latter two destinations--hence it only went through close-order drill and was never fired. The metal is still like new under the old rust blue and the bore looks like the day it left Whitney--while the wood may have been lightly refinished at some point leaving all the cartouches still fairly fresh.
Here it is with some reproduction leather. The bayonet and its scabbard are original.
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close up of the Whitney stock stamp
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Closeup of the lock and hammer still showing some original case colors
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The amazing unblemished bore of a 159 year old ACW musket probably never fired in anger.
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Cheers