Charlie Call, inventor of the Call Gold Bead front sight, was a long-time
factory employee. In fact, he probably holds the record : 64 years.
He started working in 1882, and retired (or died ) in 1946 . In
recognition of his 25th anniversary with the factory, he was presented
with a special zero-serial-number gun.
Here are three pictures of the gun itself. Its factory-engraved by
Oscar Young, and has the presentation date of "April 12th 1907"
engraved on the left side of the barrel. The cylinder is gold-washed,
and his enterwined "C C C" monogram is engraved on the left rear
part of the frame.
These next two pictures are the factory letter, and a special page
with some additional information. Following that is a picture of
Charlie Call, from the factory archives.
About 4 years ago, the factory set up a special display, in the store
area, of a few special guns from S&WCA members. I submitted this
gun as a candidate, and it was selected. The name of this display was
"Personal Favorites : From the Private Collections of S&W Collectors".
The next two pictures are an overall shot of the display case, and
then a close-up of this gun in the display cabinet.
This gun, along with three others, was offered for sale in the Devine
Auction of Dec 2 , 2001. This next picture is the front cover of the
auction catalog, and this gun is featured on the cover.
And now we get to the best part of the story ! It has since become
clear to me that all 4 guns, in fact, originally belonged to Charlie
Call. Apparently , maybe his estate or family, owned all four of them,
and decided to sell them in 2001. At this point in time, most of the guns
had after-market pearl stocks, about which I have no information.
In requesting the above factory letter, I had specifically asked about
the stocks. Based on Roys comments, I came up with the stocks that
are now on the gun.
The best part of the story is found in this next picture. It is a copy of
the auction catalog description of the gun.
In this picture there is a close-up of the monogram, and it is referenced
only as a monogram in the catalog description. I now believe, from
further statements in this description, that it was not recognized as
the monogram of Charlie Call.
The circumstances of the letter seem to be that Devine requested a
factory letter, but only gave the serial number. I believe he did not
give any description of the gun. Furthermore, the factoy records were not
clear as to the purpose of the gun. This is obvious from the comments
in the letter, as displayed in the catalog description. There was no
information, in the records, about the gun being presented to Charlie
Call on his 25th anniversary with the factory. Only that the gun was
delivered to Charlie Call and Joe Wesson !
After receiving the gun, and puzzling over it for a few days, I made a
drawing of the monogram, and sent it to Roy. As soon as he saw it,
he recognized it as that of Charlie C Call, and that was when the whole
story became clear ! The records did not clearly convey the idea that
the gun was delivered to Joe Wesson, for presentation to Charlie Call.
Regards, Mike Priwer