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Old 05-26-2010, 11:53 AM
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DCWilson DCWilson is offline
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Originally Posted by Doc44 View Post
For those of you who want to search...two Registered Magnums were ordered by American Potash & Chemical Corporation in Trona, California on October 9, 1936. The two guns were identical with a 8 3/8-inch barrel, King Reflector Red Post front sight, King #112 white outline rear sight, and Magna stocks. Registration number 1590 was in .357 Magnum caliber and Registration number 1591 was in .22 Long Rifle caliber (S&W charged $150 for this revolver, or 2.5 times the normal retail cost of this model).

The letter to S&W states..."The price is immaterial as these pistols are intended as a gift for which a subscription has been made,...". (not exactly sure what a subscription means in this context, but it doesn't really matter).

Many have tried, but no one has succeeded in finding either revolver. Happy Hunting!!!

Bill
That's more information on this fabled gun than I have previously seen in one place. Thanks for the summary.

In this context "subscription" looks like it would mean "We passed the hat." I get the feeling that a big shot at AmPot was retiring, and the upper echelons at the company wanted to give him a nice going-away present. If somebody can turn up a list of corporate officers in 1936 (I spent some time looking, but did not find what I wanted), maybe we can make an educated guess at who got the guns first. After that, of course, you have 75 years of undocumented history for them to wander around in.

I doubt whoever got them at retirement stayed in Trona. I've been there. The town and its surroundings are an interesting monument to the heyday of America's surface extraction industry, and the Trona Pinnacles are an interesting geological formation to visit, but the area does not strike me as the kind of place anybody would happily retire in.

I think the suggested Death Valley Scotty connection cannot be true. DV Scotty's situation, not to mention that of his sole benefactor Albert Johnson, had already collapsed by 1935, the year before the guns were made and shipped. Despite his self-proclaimed identity as a mining and minerals guy, there was no reason for him to have had anything to do with AmPot operations at Trona (which, coincidentally, is only 100 miles away, give or take). Scott had been a known fraud since 1906, and real minerals guys would never take him seriously.

It would be fascinating if this gun still existed in a safe somewhere. Or even as a rusty mess hanging from a nail in a barn wall.
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