My parents were not gun people, and of my grandparents only my mother's parents were comfortable with or around firearms. They were both Texas farmers born in the 1870s, and the shotgun and the .22 were household tools.
One of my mother's older brothers (born 1903) took off wandering in the 1920s. He got to California, signed on a tramp steamer and spent a year or so knocking about SE Asia. He sailed back into San Francisco before the Golden Gate bridge was more than a dream, then began wandering back toward home in Texas. Along the way he got into mining work in New Mexico (more likely management than pick-axe, I would guess), where the story is that he picked up this little .25 Colt Vest Pocket semi-auto on the grounds that even a peaceful and non-confrontational kind of guy (which he very much was) ought to have minimal protection on his person when working with high-energy and possibly unpredictable people.
He died in 1990 and I ended up inheriting this little semiauto.
Kind of rough looking, but I don't think I want to do anything to refinish it. I am pretty sure he bought it used. But he owned it longer than anyone else ever did, so it feels very much like his gun.
According to ProofHouse, the serial number puts this gun's manufacture in 1912.
My Only Heirloom Gun
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