...Well that's what the letter sez. I highly doubt it. The provinance is week. I am trying to research this for the current owner. Note is from his aunt (now deceased). Factory letter from a few years ago.
Please review pics and comment.
Some more.
Well, maybe...
Last edited by s&wchad; 04-20-2015 at 08:45 AM.
Reason: photos merged
I see I put this in the wrong area. Forgive me I am really tired and have to get these pics up and return the handgun.
I have many for pics if someone is interested...
The engraving looks similar to L. D. Nimschke's Work,And he did Work in NY.If it can be confirmed that this is his Work,That alone would make the Gun sought after.As far as the Pancho Villa link....Probably never be able to prove it.
Last edited by 05CarbonDRZ; 04-19-2015 at 11:13 PM.
Over the years I have seen many guns represented as having been owned by Pancho Villa. Of course, none of them were. Yours seems far too nice to be a genuine Villa gun.
The last of Pancho's wives made a good living for herself by buying up junk guns cheap and selling them to the Turistas as having belonged to her husband.
Over the years I have seen many guns represented as having been owned by Pancho Villa. Of course, none of them were. Yours seems far too nice to be a genuine Villa gun.
The last of Pancho's wives made a good living for herself by buying up junk guns cheap and selling them to the Turistas as having belonged to her husband.
There were also a lot of Gunsmiths in Mexico, in the 50's and 60's that engraved every Winchester rifle they could get their hands on with the names of Pancho Villa or Emiliano Zapata. A lot of people still think they have the genuine gun.
My opinion is also that this certainly came from Nimschke shop and most probably has work by Nimschke himself. The cut barrel of course hurts the value as a top collectible a lot, but is consistent with what often was done in Mexico and as such is a nice piece of history (but the connection with Panch Villa would be purely speculation with the documentation shown). I also agree with the comment that the gun is a little too "nice" to fit the story.
Just for fun I attach a photo of me and my wife in about 1970 with Pancho Villa's wife Luz Corral in her Chihuahua home. (Not only did you pay to buy a gun of Pancho's, you paid for a picture with her as well.)
I have a 1 1/2 tip-up that has been attributed to Nimschke's shop by one of the major S&W dealer/collectors in the country. His comments on mine were that some of the engraving shows the hand of the master while other parts are of a lesser quality. This is not uncommon as the shop did work for retailers such as M.W.Robinson. The master would do some of the major work and then pass it on to an apprentice for the finishing embellishments
I see many of Nimschke's motifs and styles on your revolver and some of them are identical to those on mine.
It is my understanding that Nimschke signed very little of his work unless it was something that he did 100% of and was a major piece.
If you can find a copy of "L.D. NIMSCHKE, Firearms Engraver" by R.L. Wilson, it has examples of his work and also has 100's of "Engraver Pulls" which are prints taken directly from the engraved work. He basically inked a finished work and then pressed paper onto it to create examples for his records.
Attached are a couple examples from my 1 1/2 and comparing my gun to some of the motifs shown in the book.(mine is on the right)
Pancho Villa owned/used many, many firearms during his "Career", so It is possible that any weapon from that era "Might" have been owned/used by him.
I am not famous, but during my LEO career I owned/used many different firearms. This was the era of "Furnish your own" and before agency issued weapons.
There are approx. 24 engraving images in Wilson's book on Nimschke taken from S&W models that were engraved by Nimschke. I've compared them to this American Model. While the work done on the American is high quality, I'm not 100% convinced that it is Nimscke's, however it may well have come from his shop, and as Dean suggests, he might have done some of it and turned over the simpler parts to his assistants. He signed very little of his work, only the really elaborate guns, with panel scenes, etc. There are prior threads on the Forum about Pancho Villa guns, As CB has done, both Roy Jinks and I have visited his widow in years gone by and acquired "100% authentic guns of Pancho's", for a less than a nominal fee. Mine is a Colt .38RF cartridge conversion 1861 Navy, with elaborate Nimschke style engraving and carved ivory Mexican eagle stocks.
" Señor, Si, es un pistola muy grande, por mi esposo, Pancho ! " Señora, Qual es su ultima precio ? Dos cientos dollares, no mas, Señor ! Ay yi yi ! Ed.
hyrax,
Rather then spend $100, you might see if you can get one on inter-library loan and copy the pertinent parts. That's what I did until I found one at a very reasonable price at a cartridge show.(I think it was $35 or so). I probably never will have need of it again as I don't plan on collecting Nimschke engraved guns...but you never know.
Besides, it makes a nice addition to my library....
In post #12, I express one of my criteria and show an example to detect actual work by Nimschke himself (as noted, he seldom signed anything, if so it would generally be LDN). This is the indication of the confidence of a master along with a great deal of flexibility in rotating his wrist while cutting scrolls. This works better over time periods with it not being of much use in early 1860 period, a little more of use in 1870 period and of significant use in 1880 period. As mentioned in post above, the idea was researched by Dr Harris, a medical doctor, in "Firearms Engraving as Decorative Art". The prototype examples in Harris' book and my post show a progression of chisel cuts from outside to inside over almost 360 degree rotation without pause or hesitation resulting in a uniform progression of chisel cut length with the long cuts on the outside progressing to the shortest at the inside of the scroll. The reason this evidence varies in probative value over time as I mentioned is that Nimschke evolved I think from an artist making his reputation to a business owner maximizing his income over those decades. In the early 1860s on #2 Army's and 1 1/2 old models, you don't necessarily see the full bold scroll. (But you do see the combination shown in deadin's 1 1/2 new model of a second smaller scroll cut in the center) What you see on his best (most) work of that period are intertwined scrolls of much higher artistic complexity. By 1880's he was fixated on throughput, which is shown in his engraving book by the detailed notes on how many minutes he took to engrave the barrel, cylinder, frame, etc of a small frame S&W. Now the scrolls become the bold single step process that I don't feel like any other engraver was capable of.
Your example is in the middle of these periods. I think it has so many typical motifs that buying the Nimschke book will just serve to easily confirm that. Having the Harris book will help understand the theory he developed that I have described here with some more examples. But at the end of the day, it comes down to having seen a lot of examples and especially being able to look at the engraving with good light (and to my taste, with a good stereo microscope) and then it is still opinion. My comments came from the fact that your pretty good photos of the main scroll work appear to have indications of confident continuous chisel cuts. The work on some of the other areas, notably the back strap are not of that character but as correctly stated in other posts, Nimschke often had less critical areas done by other workers in his shop. Some additional areas of concern with regard to Nimschke personal work is the central scroll on the right side is a little squeezed (out of round) and overall the punch dot background on both main areas of the frame is a little heavy maybe for his personal asthetics. The punch dot technique is another area that can yield information with good light and magnification.
From what I have read, Pancho had about as many wives as guns. He was sort of a "Love 'em and Leave 'em" guy. And marriage was evidently an informal event so far as he was concerned. Most of his earlier life was spent as a cattle rustler.
I am going to post some comparison photos that will illustrate the probability of the gun in this thread being Nimschke work. I didn't have time to set up a light box, so the photos are rough but I think they will serve to compare. Roy Jinks gives the ship date on 31693 (pictured in this post) as August 1874 which surprises me a bit given February for the OPs gun (29105) and another gun I know (32142, not engraved) that was shipped 4/4/1874. However, the comparison of the engraving pattern between a Nimschke attributed gun (31693) and the OPs gun (29105), leaves little doubt in my mind that the original gun in this thread is Nimschke work and all things considered, engraving in better condition than this refinished example.
Backstrap and such. RL Wilson attribution letter. Clearly these two guns shared major patterns in Nimschke's shop. The OPs photos are not quite magnified enough to fully evaluate the chisel stokes, but what can be seen is consistent with Nimschke work.
I combined some of the OP photos with these for easier comparison. Not too good with the photo editing, but it shows clearly the same pattern was used but as any good artist, each rendering is unique.