So let me tell you a story about how small the world can be…..


In the course of my arms career I have heard all sorts of stories about odd coincidences, blind luck, right place right time, etc.


I think we’ve all heard the story about the guy who guys to the local gunshop and finds the Garand he carried 50 years ago (and for those who will say that no one will remember their rifles serial number for that long, I call BS as does every other guy who did his piece for God and country. Mine was M16A2 #6554475.


Back in the early/mid 1990’s I was tracking down NYPD guns to build my collection. I came across a rather nice Colt Commando and purchased it.


I sent away for a letter on it and the letter confirmed it as an NYPD gun. When I eventually secured the purchase records I could find an entry for the gun but the name was not easily readable. Thus my quest to document the revolver hit a dead end and that dead end remained for 25 years or so.


Earlier this year I discovered a way to decipher and verify the illegible purchase records. I won’t get into the specific technique because its boring and not germane to the story; the important take away is that I was finally able to decipher the name of the Patrolman who owned the gun.


Having made the positive ID, I started looking to see what I could find on the fellow. I’m not any kind of detective but my Google-fu is strong. I’m a very firm believed in that you don’t always need to know an answer as long as you know where to find the answer.


I exhausted all the usual resources and figured that I was back at another dead end, this one a little further along the road than the last way.


Then, in one glorious weekend, it all came together.


I stumbled on a remarkably obscure online image database that had been put together by a college engineering department, likely as a proof-of-concept or class project sort of affair.


For database fodder, these blessed nerds chose back issues of The City Record, which they scanned and cataloged as ----SEARCHABLE--- .pdf files!


The City Record was/is the official publication of the City of New York. It is published every business day and contains all the business of NYC that has transacted in the past 24 hours. If you’re hired, fired, transferred, promoted, bidding a contract, being foreclosed on, taking a civil service exam or just having any involvement withy the City of New York, a record of it will appear in The City Record.


In amongst all the legal contract detritus, maps of eminent domain plans, and all the other business of the City That Never Sleeps, was a copy of each weeks Police Department Weekly Report.


That weekly report told what had happened the previous week in the Department, including lists of newly hired police recruits! Now I had my revolvers previous owners name, command, date of appointment and most importantly, a notation that he was hired as a wartime expedient Temporary Patrolman.


My goal now was to try to find an image of the fellow.


Here’s where the small word part comes into play.


I now live south of Albany, about 120 miles north of The City, in a very rural area. I started searching obituaries for information on the fellow and could find only one (he had a unique name).


The only obituary I could find was for a fellow with the same name as my guy, but with a slightly different spelling, who died about 15 years ago in a county just north of me.


The obituary was very long and very detailed. Nowhere in the obituary did it mention that the fellow had been a cop.


My experience in researching NYPD guns has been that the family always puts in the obit about how Dad was cop for 27 years, retired a CPT and in lieu of flowers, donations should be made to the Anchor Club or some similar Job-related charity or group. Nothing like that appeared in this obituary. Right off the bat, this was worrisome. I then noticed that all the blood descendants of the fellow were female, meaning that the easily trackable unique surname had more than likely morphed into some annoyingly common post-marriage name. With my luck it’d be Smith or Jones or something vexingly similar and abundant.


As I read down to the list of grand-daughters, I found a girl with a very unique last name. It started with a Q for crying out loud, so you know this would be easier to find than any other relative.


I read on a little further and saw that this girl was described as “…beloved grand-daughter, (unique Q name), of (name of the town I live in now)….”


Holy ****! This guys granddaughter lives in the same town as me!!!!!


Ok, now I’m in full stalker mode. Do a search on the granddaughters unique name and the name of the town I live in and find out she was employee of the month a few years back at a satellite office of the local hospital and that she has worked in that office for about 15 years.


The satellite office of the hospital is so close that you can see my house from the office parking lot!


In fact, 12 years ago when I was in nursing school, I did a clinical rotation in that office! Her and I probably worked on something together!!!!

OK, so now I have to contact her. We play phone tag for about a week and the whole time I’m thinking about how to broach the subject with her.


Finally, I get her on the phone. I explain that I am a history major at SUNY-Albany and am doing some research on NYC civil servants during WW2. Can you tell me what you grandfather did during WW2?


She paused a moment and said, “He didn’t serve in the military during WW2, he was a policeman in NY”.


At that moment a feeling of calmness swept over me and I told her that I have her grandfathers service revolver and had been looking for his family for many years. She was shocked. We chatted some more and she said she had a sister (another of my fellows granddaughters) who was big into family history and would forward my contact info to her.


Fast forward a couple weeks and I meet the other granddaughter and her husband at a local diner. Remember I said it was a small world? Turns out her husband is one of the instructors at SUNY-Albany although not one of mine.


We chat and finally she pulls out her phone and shows me pictures of her grandfather and amongst all the pictures of him later in life and enjoying time with the family in the decades from 1940 onwards, is a full length image of him in summer uniform with his holstered revolver visible and the same shield number on his chest and cap device as is stamped on the backstrap of the revolver!


So I bought a revolver 25 years ago, moved all over the US, and eventually settled down and bought a place that’s a 6 minute drive from a medical office where I once rubbed shoulders with the guys granddaughter and attended school where the other granddaughters husband teaches.


It’s a small world. I wouldn’t want to have to mow it or anything, but it really is a small world.


RM Vivas

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RM Vivas
SWCA#1482L, SWHF#837

Wow! That us a great story, RM! Thanks for telling it to us!

That is terrific work and very cool.

That was a fun exit from the dead end. Thanks for sharing.


Sent from my motorola one 5G using Tapatalk

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Slava Ukraini!

Wonderful story and I appreciate your diligence. Thank you for sharing.

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I am a sheep dog!
1601 (ret)

Wish I had your luck. Last yr I bought a 1950 K22 that was traded into local Cabelas buy a (elderly) retired LEO. It is engraved with the local PD name and has what I presume is a badge # on it. I wanted to know why a cop would have a 22LR. Animal control or target team is all I could think of. My Google Fu is not strong. Yellow belt probably. I’m not sure a Letter from S&W would answer my question. The PD hasn’t seen fit to return any emails.

Probably an award/trophy.

I'll look into it if you like. PM me the details.

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RM Vivas
SWCA#1482L, SWHF#837

Many years ago I bought a S&W M-57. In Fairbanks. I needed a handgun I was a young guide. A couple years later I quit the business there and went back south. Sold the gun to a fellow from Fairbanks or thereabout. This was late 60s. 8 years ago I was at a gun show locally and I thought I recognized a fellow. Said I think I know you. He said I doubt it. Just moved here from Alaska. Told him I had sold him a S&W 41 mag years ago...He was amazed. Amazingly he still had it, was in his car and wanted to sell it. Needless to say...it is in my safe and will stay there...And while he was talking with me some other people heard the conversation about Alaska...We had 5 people together who had been in interior Alaska at the same time. Sometimes...yep...it's a very small world. Once driving the Alaska Highway. stopped at a place called scenic overlook in the Yukon. Saw a Jeepster sitting there. only other vehicle. walked down the path to eat lunch with scenic background. Walking towards me was a fellow I knew... I had been his best man 8 years previously 4000 miles away. hadn't seen him in 5 years after he went in the military. Small world for sure

What a great story with the perfect outcome!

I'm currently trying to find the connection between one of my grandfathers and the fellow who was one of the first developers of the lakefront property here. He built the first large hotel on the lake and other things too. Problem is 2 fold, common last name and all the men had first names starting with J and then different middle names.

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Super Snooper

A beautiful story beautifully penned.

Well done. Well done, indeed.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Maybe not as small a world as yours but about 15 years ago my nextdoor neighbor said she had some guns to sell. Most of them were junk but one was a very nice, early S&W model 66. She said she wanted it out of the house. Her story was her late husband had been a Memphis cop and he had been given this revolver after he and his partner were investigating a home invasion robbery where the victims had been tied up. His partner, Patrolman Larry Childress, unfortunately turned a corner and ran into one of the suspects who shot and killed him. In 2020 on a social media sight, Nextdoor, we were talking about a Memphis policeman that had been killed recently in the line of duty and there was a lady that said she was part of a home invasion in which a patrolman had been shot and killed back in the 80s. I PM'd her and sure enough she was one of the victims that had been tied up by the suspects and remembered Officer Childress killed outside of her house. Said she was a teenager and it was her mother that had gotten free and called the police. She remembered the name of his partner and sure enough it was his widow that I had bought the pistol from.

Police Officer Larry P. Childress - Memphis Police Association

Attached Images

1972 model 66 lettered and holster.jpg (57.9 KB, 298 views)

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

Bought a lot of guns out of Frontier Sporting Goods in Second Avenue up in Fairbanks back in the day.

Had a cousin who went with his advance party to Norway to get ready for the rest of his unit to ship over for joint Norwegian/USMC exercises. Did his work, got off duty, went to the local Norwegian bar scene to check out the local talent. Started hitting on a good looking dame who spoke English. Turns out she was visiting Norway and lived a couple blocks from his home in NY!

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RM Vivas
SWCA#1482L, SWHF#837

Sheepdawg, so the gun belonged to the deceased officer? Sorry I can’t read letters in pic.

I have a Small world story. It’s not as dramatic, or heartwarming as the one, portrayed by R M Viva.

Many years ago, at an OGCA show held in the old WW2 Tank factory in Cleveland Ohio, I bought a ‘Colt Ace, Sam Colt signature series, commemorative pistol, at a reduced price, as Its wood presentation case had been lost.

Only one case is issued for each pistol of that type.

Many years later, I was attending a small gun show in Hilliard, Ohio.

While browsing through the display tables, I spotted my Colt Aces’, presentation case.

A vendor was using that case to hold his collection of badges, pins, and small parts. He couldn’t remember where he had acquired it.

When I asked that vendor, if that case was for sale, he smugly replied ‘Yeah, but it’ll cost you 25 bucks’, considering that a high price, and that I'd decline it

I tried not to tear the pocket off of my trousers while getting to my billfold, to pay him.

The vendor was then reluctant to sell the case, but was reminded by several of his customers, and fellow vendors, that he had offered it for sale., and a deal’s a deal.

He finally accepted the 25 bucks, I had my case, and an enormous smile.


l Still have that beautiful case, and the Colt Ace. Occasionally, I wear the smile.


I’m viewing the Ace, presently, displayed on my desktop, and I'm wearing the smile

Pardon my favorite, lengthy, true gun Story.

Chubbo

Yes, that the letter I got from the seller, she described how her late husband got the revolver.

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

Thank you for a wonderful story. So glad to read something totally different. Perseverance pays off

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Is that a gun No a lifesaver

Your story reminds me of when back in the mid-1990s I had to track down the great-grandson of someone who died in 1957. He had inherited a small undivided interest in a property in Maryland but somehow got missed when the estate was being settled. My firm was a title insurance agent and one of its underwriters retained my firm to try to find this person so his small interest could be acquired.

Back then there was no internet. So how did I find the 4th generation heir of a nearly 40 year old estate? I got lucky in that a lot of the family stayed in the area and I started finding estates for the people in the next generation, with addresses for their heirs. So armed with the estate records, a road atlas to find the towns and a phone book to find the area codes, i started calling Directory Assistance to get phone numbers and started burning the phone lines. And sonofagun, I found somebody in the family who knew the person I was looking for. We contacted him about the situation, he asked for a sum of money, we counter-offered some lesser money, he agreed, and we got a deed from him for his interest in the property. I guess this was what is called old fashioned detective work.

Doing some genealogy, I was researching a Charlie Burke who my great-grandmother's sister married.

Irritatingly, at the time there was another Charlie Burke in a town about 20 miles away, so of course all the databases turn up info on both of them and I have to figure out which one it is for each record.

Charlie Burke #1 was on my mother's Swedish side. Turns out Charlie Burke #2 is related to me thru my dad's Czech side.

I beg to differ! That's a great bit of detective work, I'd say! A great story, and well-told. It makes me smile to think of how the story went full circle and closed the loop.

Thanks for sharing that one!

This is such a fine thread, beginning with your inspiring original post RM Vivas.



Here's a story that is less of a "small world" story and more of a "the rest of the story."

When my friend Cres Lawson began to rapidly loose his vision due to macular degeneration he asked me if there were a few of his guns that I'd like to have. I'd long admired his Colt Woodsman which had provided him with such enjoyment and was the basis for some of his stories of Mexico and the family ranch in Kerrville that he'd related through the years. He'd given it a lifetime of careful use and loving care. He'd purchased the Woodsman in the summer of 1928 while working at the William Crites gun shop in downtown San Antonio, Texas.

Cres worked at Mr. Crites shop several years, always in the summer between semesters of attending a military school in Kerrvile, Texas and latter when attending the University of Texas (where he studied under and came to personally know J. Frank Dobie of Texas literature fame). Of course Cres spent a lot of his earnings in the gun shop.

Cres wanted a good quality .22 pistol to compliment the Colt New Service Model 1909 .45 Colt his father purchased for him from the San Antonio Arsenal in 1920. The family had a huge ranch deep in Mexico and spent a couple of months down there each winter hunting deer, collecting the rents and crop payments from the Mexican tenants. A young man could have a time with a .22 pistol while roaming the ranch.

Mr. Crites didn't have a Woodsman in stock but told Cres he'd order one. By and by it arrived and Cress was excited to see it. Mr. Crites told Cres that he''d have to charge him full retail price on this particular purchase.

Cres had been used to the generous discount that Mr. Crites had always provided but didn't quibble and respectfully paid the $32 price for the pistol. He though the arrangement was a bit odd, but said no more about it. He dedicated himself to shooting only ammunition featuring noncorrosive priming (recall that Clean-Bore priming had only come out the year before) in the gun and cleaning it with Winchester Crystal Cleaner. He purchased a Brill holster and a Boyt leather, fleece-lined, zippered pistol case for his new .22 pistol. He and the pistol went on to have many adventures in Mexico and on their ranch in Kerrvile.

Fast forward to 1994 when he offered to sell his treasured Colt to me. It was in excellent used condition. I offered him $600 for the pistol and he said: "No, I only paid $32 for it brand new. You can have it for $200." I replied: "No, that isn't fair to you. It's an outstanding example of a Woodsman and you've kept it so well that you should receive a fair price. I'll give you $500 for it. "Naw" he said. "It's only a shooter and I want you to have it. I'll take $300 for it." "Now Cres, that's not right," I said. "That gun in that condition is worth every bit of $600 on the present market. Would you at least take $450 for it. I'd be honored to have it to remember all your tales and you know it'd be going to a good home." He replied: "You're the only other person I've ever seen that was as fastidious about his gun maintenance as I am. I want you to have it and I won't take more than $400 for the gun". The deal was done. We were to play this same game of "reverse bargaining" several more times on his fine firearms.

I queried him in detail about the history of the Woodsman, the purchase and some of the tales he'd told, writing them down. Some 66 years later he was still puzzled why Mr. Crites had made him purchase the pistol for full list price.

A year or two later I got around to ordering a factory letter from Colt. The day it arrived I excitedly took the envelope to Cres' house to open it so we could share its contents together. The letter cleared up the matter of the retail price for Cres when I read it aloud to him. He chuckled satisfyingly. The letter said the Woodsman was shipped to the Topperwein Hardware Company, San Antonio, Texas in June of 1928. Cres explained:

"Back then Ad Topperwein of Winchester exhibition shooting fame ran a gun shop and hardware store around the corner from Mr. Crites' establishment in downtown San Antonio. They were friendly competitors and frequented each other's shops almost daily when Topperwein wasn't out of town with his shows. A back alley connected the two shops. Many times on slow days we three, or occasionally with my father who was good friends with Ad Topperwein, the four of us would sit around talking business, politics, guns and hunting. It's now obvious that Mr. Crites only went around the corner to Topperweins to get me that Woodsman. Topperwein must have charged him full price so he charged me."

Cres got a big kick out of finally finding out after 68 years why the Woodsman cost him full price.

He passed away in November of 2001 at 94. He was my best gun bud. I've got the Woodsman and some great memories and stories to go with it. The opportunity to share a factory letter from a firearm from long bygone days of firearms manufacturing with its original owner was almost unique and was an event that I wouldn't take for.



The Woodsman with a replacement Heiser holster that Cres bought for it after he accidentally left the Brill holster in Mexico and also the Boyt case.





Cres and I many moons ago, admiring an armadillo which I had fetched for him to have stuffed.