I just ran accross a Forgotten Weapons vid with Ian discussing the R. L. Wilson fraud, and thought about the C&Rsenal podcast from around Christmas last year that discussed it at length. And it occurred to me that I don't recall seeing anything about this on the forum.

This has little impact on the S&W community, but huge impact on the Colt community. As Ian put it while holding copies of Colt Heritage, and Colt An American Legend, "they're pretty, but useless."

Take a listen...

True Crime Collector Skulduggery: R.L. Wilson and the “Trade of the Century” – Forgotten Weapons

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Alden
Guns N' Rosés

There’s a full interview/podcast if one is a Patreon of C&Rsenal about this. Interesting to say the least. I met Wilson on several occasions and was surprised by the info. That said, I’ve discarded most of the books he’d written.

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Some Might Say.

I saw the video several weeks ago. Ian makes a pretty convincing case that Mr. Wilson was involved in questionable activity. Was interesting to hear.

Very well presented by Ian.

There are many just like that in the world of fine art and antique documents.

Ever see the documentary about the wine dealer forgery fraud? He had all of the world's most prominent wine authorities fooled. He was brought down by one of the wealthy Koch brothers (a major wine collector) who finally figured out something odd was going on.

I wonder how the Koch brothers would be able to spot a crook?

R.L. 'Larry' Wilson (Robert Lawrence) was the brain behind locking engraver Alvin White into a years long exclusive contract. That taking away any artistic freedom from White.
AA White Engravers INC was the company.
Herb Glas (sp?) was the VP of the co. He was a long time antique arms dealer from NY.
Many engravers were used to do the work under AA White's name,,White himself only did some of the high profile work for publicity and the like.

Wilson's world came crashing down with the scams unfolding and also his wife Charlotte finding out about Larry's just a bit too close of a friendship with his secretary.
Some of the scams themselves went back into the 80's.

Charlotte is a lady from a well to do CT family. Her family and it's $$ and connections were a key to Larry success no doubt.

"Here's your birthday present darling,,a new Ferrari from your new bride".
Nothing new for Larry really, he had already had and sold a mid 1930's Rolls.
Bought and sold was what he liked to do.

But when the divorce entered the picture, The dream house, cars and property, 10acres in Hadlyme, Ct (sp?) went up for sale and auction. Everything was for sale. That was in 2001.
The F1 race car in Larry's office to the stuffed White Lion. The antique furniture, the full size reproduction Stage Coach, firearms,,everything.
I wonder if the new residents of ever kept the Colt Blue Dome replica gazebo in the expansive yard in tact.

Most interest at the auction was for the firearms and accessorys/related items.
Furniture was begging for bids in the later hrs of the auction.

Larry laid low in SF,Cal for most of time after that. But he did still pop up at some of the better gunshows. Still dressed up as an important person as always.
At one such show he was set up and would for $100 plus a shot of a certain top shelf product, write and sign a letter of authenticity about your firearm on his personal RL Wilson letterhead stationary.
His first question to you the owner of the firearm was 'Well, What'd you want it to say?'

Found this just now... my bad, looks like the original OPs post...apologies.

"True Crime Collector Skulduggery: R.L. Wilson and the “Trade of the Century”
"R.L. Wilson was a pillar of the firearms collecting community, and especially the Colt collecting community, in the 1970s and 80s. He wrote a slew of books on Colt, and was a major broker, dealer, and appraiser. He also betrayed the trust people put in him, as best exemplified by the “trade of the century”, in which he swindled 290 firearms out of the Connecticut State Library museum in exchange for 8 guns and a cane (including two stolen guns and two later generally accepted to be fakes). Today we will talk about that story…

If you want to hear more about Wilson’s work, I would encourage you to subscribe to support C&Rsenal on Patreon, and check out the two-hour podcast Othais and Cody Museum Associate Curator Danny Michael did on the topic.

You can also download a huge PDF of Connecticut State Police files on the investigation to read yourself"

found here: True Crime Collector Skulduggery: R.L. Wilson and the “Trade of the Century” – Forgotten Weapons

My daddy told me: "don't invest in anything that you aren't an expert in"...I don't invest in anything....period.
J.

I just re-listened to that podcast—all two hours of it—after watching Ian's vid. Makes me glad I'm not a Colt Guy. It would be sort of like finding out that Jinks and Supica just made it all up...

I know there had to be other C&Rsenal subscribers here somewhere.

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Alden
Guns N' Rosés

There are folks out there that still defend him

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

There's a guy back East who did low level stuff with Enfield rifles that I nearly fell foul of some years back when after an Indian made SMLE. Getting the fonts correct is basic when humping a collector rifle, as is polishing out your grind marks.

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Release the Kraken

I think your daddy is a smart man. Larry

R. L. Wilson was able to take advantage of an atmosphere of reverence and longing for authority figures in the gun community.

That was very prevalent among collectors and firearms enthusiasts at a time when you couldn’t easily check things yourself. Fortunately that has changed dramatically.

Back then, if somebody said “according to Wilson”, that was gospel, and people were appalled if you asked how he determined that or to see some documentation.

Quite apart from the actual criminal fraud, Wilson hobbled generations of collectors with his fake data.

For example, only through collecting data from the internet on actual lettered guns did it become clear that his serial ranges for some WW II-era Colts were simply made up. And those serial ranges still are the basis of serial charts like proofhouse.com and even the “official” Colt online serial look-up.

I was a dealer on the antique gun show circuit now many years ago and Wilson and another dealer conspired to defraud me over an engraved Newburyport Ballard rifle. When I confronted the two of them I was told that " you learn the f***ing hard way in this business". I learned that lesson well.

Unfortunately, there are too many "RL Wilson's" out there in too many industries. I've learned a few lessons over the past and have steered clear of so called "self proclaimed experts" like steering away from giant pot-holes in the road.

About two years ago I was in a well known jewelry store in my neighborhood having two new batteries installed in two of my wife's watches. While there waiting a young woman came in with an engagement ring her husband had bought her a few years earlier - from that very store. A nasty divorce had taken place and she wanted to sell the store back her engagement ring. When the store owner offered her just barely above 10% of what the original cost was, she freaked out! She had to be escorted out of the store yelling and screaming - it was quite a scene! The owner looked at me with an embarrassing smirk on his face and after getting my two batteries installed that was the last time I went in there. Unfortunately in the jewelry business this is all to common place.

We can keep going, - the automobile business, home repairs, collectible artwork, etc. etc. When someone has to solely rely on a single "expert" for both the buyer and the seller's interests, trouble is usually in the air!

Jewelers are no different than gun dealers, they are in business to make money. What they have is gold and what you have is junk. Buy low and sell high. Sometimes you run into one who is more honest than others. The local gun shop here likes to buy at well less than 50% of book value and sell the same item at retail. Have seen dealer (in shop and at shows using Blue Books that are 10-20 years old as a reference they show the folks they are buying from.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

I am a retired self employed business man and I am for Capitalism all the way. I am for making a fair profit however that certainly does not include cheating people based on false pretenses. I can look in the mirror and honestly say that every sale I ever made the customer received what they paid for and I made a fair profit to cover my expenses, rent, insurance, payroll, etc. leaving a fair profit for myself. I never cheated, defrauded or gouged anyone over my entire career and being that I live in the very Town and community I worked in, that is a good thing since I run in to my former customers all the time.

This RL Wilson guy set out to defraud, cheat and gouge and is just a bad apple in the industry. Last I heard he was in prison but I don'y know his status now.

Q. How do you know when a salesman/woman (put your own term in the parens) is lying? (Except you Chief :-)))))
A. When his/her lips are moving.

We should start a thread just for stories of how various 'dealers' of any type of merchandise have cheated customers.....

I've witnessed local gun shops, jewelry stores, auto merchants, realtors, home repair professionals etc. do some really low-handed deals.... but then, I'm OLD and have had hundreds, if not thousands, of opportunities to witness greed. YET, I'm still amazed each time it shows itself.

I often wonder how many of us here have taken advantage of an unsuspecting seller (?) I can honestly say the I have not.....

J

Wilson died in 2016.

Hopefully, he didn't breed....!

J.

It’s common in the gun industry. It used to be you could expect to get about 50% of the anticipated resale value at a local gun shop if you wanted to turn it into money quickly. Now 40% is somewhat generous and that’s a bit of a surprise given the demand and the number of open spaces in local gun shop racks. Apparently they see a strong market as an opportunity for them to turn a larger buck rather than ensure you get your fair share as well.

——

I recently had a couple Browning Auto 5 shot guns that I had inherited and had no use for and I offered them to a local gunshop. One was a solid $700 shotgun and the other was Belgian made and worth a solid $800 in its condition. They offered me $300 for each.

I ended up consigning them with a shop that offered my $1100 cash now or $1300 when they sell. That’s about 85% of market value and is still a fair profit for a shop that isn’t putting any money up front on a pair of shotguns that will sell pretty quickly. On my end I don’t have to deal with gunbroker listings, fees, shipping, or potentially dissatisfied customers who didn’t read a listing and or have buyers remorse after bidding too much.

With all due respect, many of the posts here about how you can‘t trust dealers and experts or how they got cheated miss the point of this particular debacle, likely because they aren‘t familiar enough with “Colt culture“.

It would indeed. His books were “the bible” for Colt collectors.

There are other collectible firearms that have similar problems with similar “experts”.

The unfortunate fact is that those experts will start with a limited set of facts then just fill in the gaps. Sometimes they use pretty good guesses, other times they just make it up to suit their own purposes.

Worse, those experts almost always collect a following of devotees who fawn over them, praise them and over time lend them an air of authenticity because so many people believe them. Having legions of loyal followers still isn’t truth or creditability.

A made up fact or outright lie doesn’t become true just because thousands or even millions believe it. Thinking that a popular belief must be true is still just an ad populum logical fallacy.

I ran into this recently on another forum where someone insisted my Winchester Model 52A had to be a pre-A based on the serial number, and a date range claimed by an expert, despite the obvious and distinctive A features on the receiver. It’s apparently easier to ignore and reject the literally milled in steel evidence than it is to accept your favorite expert may have been wrong on a serial number range.

If you want to enjoy watching a dust up in the USGI milsurp environment just bring out your Remington M1903 "modified" rifle and watch the fur fly. It can be quite entertaining.

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Live long and prosper

...or defiantly say that you will not be seeking all matching parts for your rebuilt Garand.

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Release the Kraken

Wilson figured in a local scam with a museum curator to get money out the patron.


Museum fraud case in Kentucky will showcase famous firearms from Custer, Buffalo Bill | National News | tucson.com

Wilson was certainly a prolific publisher of books on Colt firearms, most with beautiful pictures and interesting stories. But none of them were written with the detail required by a Colt collector to become truly educated on the nuances of any particular model.

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Terry Lester

Interesting mention about Louisville's Frasier Museum, which is in downtown Louisville. It has been probably 13-15 years since I was there, and it was an outstanding experience. The first time I went, I couldn't take it all in during the time I had available, and returned a few days later to see what I had missed the first time. As I remember, Frasier made his money in the distillery business. Brown-Foreman maybe?

Is the Frasier still in operation? If so, is it still as impressive as it once was?

I always considered them to be in the "Coffee Table Decoration" category. But nice pictures.

I’m not talking about the coffee table stuff. It’s his “research” at Colt which collectors quoted as authoritative, and many still do. Serial ranges, numbers produced, the stuff that really matters.

Certainly the Colt’s Dates of Manufacture is a handy little reference book and there is useful information in it, but only a small piece of the stuff that really matters, for example, to a Colt Single Action collector. Date of manufacture and production quantities are not information I would necessarily refer to when making a buy/no buy decision on a 1st generation Colt SAA; for that level of information I always turned to John Kopec’s books.

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Terry Lester

Does this include getting a heck of a deal on an item a gun show vendor or patron sold you because they didn't know what they had? I have certainly done just that and believe most of us have as well.
What am I supposed to do, give them more money in an attempt to be "honest?"
Guess I'm just rotten to the core, then...

I have a strict and unwavering rule about this.

If someone asks me what I think a particular firearm is worth, I will either tell them that I don't know (if it's a firearm that falls out of my area of expertise), or I will offer what I believe to be a fair and reasonable estimate of market value. I also explain that that number will fluctuate considerably depending on the sales channel that one chooses—so one cannot take that estimate and expect to get that from a pawn shop. Etcetera.

But if someone offers me a product and names a price, then it's fair game.

A few years ago someone in my neighborhood showed me a Colt Python from 1973 that they were looking to find a new home for. I asked her how much she wanted for it, and she told me that she'd be happy to get $400 for it. We both came away from that transaction very happy—she with her four hundred dollar bills, and me with a 4" nickel Python.

Mike

On several occasions I have paid a seller more than his asking price if it was a really good deal. I don't like the idea of taking advantage of a stranger if the amount involved is significant.

I never had issues with an arsenal rebuilt M1 Garand. It was in original military condition to military specs when it left the arsenal. That should count for a lot more than an arsenal rebuilt rifle rebuilt to military specs that is then bubba’d by someone putting “matching” or “correct” parts in it that may or may not be in spec and may or may not be original military parts. There is absolutely nothing “original” about that.

I even see that over emphasis on “all correct” parts when people don’t even understand what it means. For example I have a quality hardware M1 carbine with a Rock Ola barrel and I’ve had self proclaimed call it a parts gun because it has parts from multiple manufacturers. Quality Hardware was right down the street from Rock Ola and they always used Rock Ola barrels.

If you read up on the carbine. You'll find that among the 9 manufacturers excess parts were often exchanged when needed. No big deal. I like to put distance between me and "know it alls." BTW I would love to have an Erwin Peterson for my stash.

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S&W Accumulator

I cam across a very nice Interarms imported Walther PP at a yard sale in Alexandria VA. The lady selling it was recently widowed and her husband had worked just down the street for Interarms for a couple decades. She had it marked for sale for $150. I told her I’d take it and handed her $400. It was worth about $500 at the time and $400 was essentially the 80% of market value she’d have gotten selling it on consignment at a gun shop rather than at a yard sale.

Would she have been happy with $150? Sure. But her husband would be turning over in her grave at me taking advantage of her, and *I* would not have felt good about cheating her out of $250, every time I looked at that pistol.

Are their people from the unethical ilk that wouldn’t feel guilty about ripping off a widow? Sure there are. Some of the, even brag about it. They are one of the biggest reasons our country is in the mess it’s in now.


Now…in contrast several years ago I saw a 9422 trapper in a large local gunshop amongst a rack of Henry .22 lever actions and marked with a $450 price tag. It was easily an $800 gun at the time. I got the shop owner, told him I was interested in his 9422 Trapper and led him over to the section with the Henry’s (He and I both new the collectible Winchesters were on the other side of the building. Standing there, we also both knew it was mis marked. He looked at me and said if you don’t buy it right now, I’m going to reprice it, and I bought it for $450.

I felt good about it as 1) it’s his business to know the value of the rifles he sells, and 2) he had the chance to back out of the sale. But he was also honorable enough to live with his mistake and sell it for the price marked.

What I would not have tried to do was find the newest, greenest, dumbest employee in the place and have them take it up front for me, trusting they wouldn’t realize is was mis priced. That would not be ethical.

Sadly we now live in a society where way too many people see, to think “if it’s not illegal, it’s ethical”. That’s not what ethics is about.

I recv'd an email wondering about mentioning Wilson's wife and her family in an earlier post,, "Charlotte is a lady from a well to do CT family. Her family and it's $$ and connections were a key to Larry success no doubt."

Her father, RL's FIL, was Arno Werner. His name you may have noted often in Wilsons picture books as having done the case making & binding and leather carving skills for many of the modern presentation engraved Colts. As well, the restoration of original cased Colts.
Arlo Werner was the chief bookbinder for the Harvard University Houghton (sp) Library and generally considered one, of if not the best in that trade.
He past away in the mid 1990's.

Just an explanation..

I have an M1 Carbine with a QH receiver but an Inland barrel. It could have been a postwar rebuild, as nearly all were. Not sure what the other components are as I have never checked.

My wife, who has nothing but disdain for firearms, was fascinated by this. As a retired former assistant state librarian, she copied Ian's episode and sent it to several of her professional librarian friends. Librarians are often tasked with valuing and managing collections of various types. Such professionals need to be aware of scams such as R.L. Wilson's.

Every man, should he be blessed to live into adulthood, will be presented with the opportunity to dishonestly profit in a circumstance where only he and God know the truth. What's your integrity worth?

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Psalm 27:2

Yes, it is still in operation. Impressive? Maybe, sort of. The gun side of things has been greatly de-emphasized. The schools virtually blacklisted it because of it was an "ARMS" museum.

and yes, Frazier was Vice-Chairman and the public face of Brown-Forman from 1983 until his retirement in 2000

Not too surprising in these days of wokeness gone mad. There were many magnificent guns at the Frasier when I visited. I remember they had a Gatling set up in the lobby area near the entrance. Only the second authentic Gatling I had ever seen in person. The first one was at the YO ranch in Kerrville TX. No idea if it is still there.

Quality Hardware was the only USGI M1 carbine prime contractor that only made one part, the receiver. All of their other parts were made either by sub-contactors or one of the other prime contractors. For example, Quality Hardware primarily used barrels made by Inland, Winchester, Underwood but they were also furnished a few from Rock Ola, IBM, and Buffalo Arms. The vast majority of stocks used on Quality Hardware carbines were made by Rock Ola, but a few came from IBM's subcontractor. Those familiar with USGI M1 carbines would expect to see mixed parts on a Quality Hardware.

I'm not familiar with the COLT collector environment, but I've been wheeling & dealing and collecting USGI M1 carbines for a long time and it would be hard to find a more snobbish and ego-centric group than M1 carbine collectors (that's painting with a wide brush).

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- Change it back -

I started collecting carbines in the late 90's. In all that time I found maybe six or so that were "As Issued", all the others were arsenal rebuild or ones that somebody had tried to make "correct".

Attached Images

Carbines1.jpg (177.2 KB, 30 views)

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

Me too, I've seen very few originals. They are definitely addicting.

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- Change it back -

Interesting. I never knew there was drama with R.L. Wilson. I have a copy of his "nice to look at" Colt coffee table book, which I lusted over as a cash poor teenager, and a more recent general old west firearms themed book. My Colt collection is just nice representative examples of high production post-1900 guns, so really not a player in that environment.

I am an old man. I started collecting guns in the late 1950's when a factory new Civil War musket was $15. Most collectors were average folks who spanned the spectrum from wealthy to blue collar average folks- all just enjoyed old things and value was important but not the central reason why people collected. I started making my living with antique guns in the early 70's during the rise of the investor-collector phenomenon wherein antiquities in general and antique guns in particular were touted as low risk high return investment strategies. This brought a flood of money into the business from folks who in many cases were not knowledgeable enough and therefor relied upon the big name dealers to build their collections. Money + Greed = fraud. Wilson's early big score was the RQ Sutherland collection that led to The Book Of Colt Firearms by Sutherland and Wison. Let me tell you there was a parade of dealers who got in on that golden calf. Just don't ask too many questions about the originality of lots of the pretty guns pictured in that book. Moral to the story is " Caveat Emptor" and learn before you buy.

One of the things that bothered me about Wilson, in addition to his fraud, was that for his seminal The Book of Book of Colt Firearms, which is sorta "the bible" for Colt Collectors, in later editions he dropped his co-author from the book.

My memory is that before he became famous, Wilson was living at the estate of a wealthy Colt collector while he (they?) worked on the book. When the book came out, the collector's name (Sanders? Saunders?) was listed as co-author on the book. My assumption is that Wilson did most of the work, as one would expect with this sort of relationship. Still, if the collector was initially listed as co-author, I think later editions should have listed him as co-author as well. I think dropping the collector's name from the book was petty.

There ya go: Sutherland, per IrishFritz in the post directly above mine.

I research the internet and my book shelves when I want to know something on a firearm. I have a couple of six foot long shelves that are filled with collectors guides I read them and then double check what I can on the internet. Some of the books are worth more than guns! I have a couple of Wilson's books, bought at Barnes & Noble for $20.00 years ago. Not for research, but liked looking at the pictures.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.