Earp's "Model 3" in Juneau AK

Many articles about Wyatt Earp's guns mention the S&W "Model 3" that he is said to have checked with the U.S. Marshal in Juneau, never reclaimed, and that is now displayed in the Red Dog Saloon. I believe that the hammer spur in the image is more like that of an S&W Double Action First Model. Would appreciate comment from someone who is more familiar with these earlier models than I am.

As far as most write ups go regarding Wyatt Earp, his pistol was

the Smith & Wesson New Model 3 (Schofield-SA) in .44 S&W Russian,

given to Wyatt by John Clum just days before the OK Corral shootout.
But , I have read so many differing stories about his pistols it's hard to find the truth.

Earps gun?

There is no proof Wyatt Earp ever stopped in Juneau, Alaska on his way to Nome for the Gold strike.

In fact there is a newspaper article that claims he was involved in a fist fight in Nome two days after this gun was claimed to have been turned in to the marshals office in Juneau.

If you look closely this relic that resides on the wall of the Red Dog saloon looks to be a rusty incomplete copy of a 44 S&W DA top break. Looks almost like a frozen dug up.

See photos;

Notice the hammer appears wrong and so does the trigger. There were several copies made during that period. Just another drunken bar yarn using a cheap dug up copy with a made up story to bring in tourists in my opinion.

Murph

It may be a .44 DA with the separate spring steel trigger guard missing, or a foreign copy. But the details of how it got to AK sound pretty specific.

It's a double action. Single actions don't have the double cylinder stop and free groove on the cylinder.

What image?

Finally found a poor quality image that is a 44 DA with a round butt and a double set of stop notches. Also, the Schofield was a 45 round and not available in 44 Russian. There is some information about a Smith & Wesson Model 3, either an American or a Old Old Model Russian. It has often been mis-identified as a Model 3 Schofield, and even a Franklin Mint replica that they named Schofield with serial number 20029. Not sure where that number came from?

Earp was also said to own a Colt Buntline Special that I believe Ned Buntline stated he gave Earp, but no evidence was ever found. THere is also a Colt at the Arizona History Museum said to have been owned by Earp, but there is evidence that Earp never owned that gun either. On and on it goes. Big money has been paid for Earp's guns but not sure if any of them have solid provenance. Best chance for one was what was claimed to be Earp's 10 gauge shotgun that killed Curly Bill. Someone paid $375,000 for it so I hope it is legit for that buyer's sake.

This is an image of the supposed Wyatt Earp Model 3 American and one of his Double shotguns from the Arizona History Museum.

http://smith-wessonforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=646278&stc=1&d=1694907441

Does Wyatt seem like the guy that would check a gun in and then forget about it?

Seems odd.

The provenance thing can be difficult. I have an early Colt Commander that they say Wyatt carried, but I have my doubts.

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The is a lot of misinformation about Wyatt Earp, due to his death before the Stuart Lake book came out with the made up stories by Lake & Earp's alcoholic wife. As for the Buntine guns, also fake, Ned Buntline was never in Dodge City. I grew up in Dodge, the real lawman who tamed Dodge & southwest Kansas was Ham B. Bell, who served as a Deputy U S Marshal as well as Sheriff of Ford County for several years. He served more warrants than any other old west lawman, & died in 1947 as the oldest old west lawman. He never shot a man, due to he always had his guns drawn first before confronting outlaws, as well as backing down Wyatt Earp & his bunch in a saloon after the so called Dodge City Saloon War, when the Earp Gang as Ham called them tried to start a gunfight with some cowboy's in a saloon while Ham was U S Marshal. Earp never returned to Dodge after that, maybe because Ham was Sheriff for most of the years before 1900.

I believe there is lots of misinformation for just about every old-west figure out there including the guy you refer to. It is obvious in reading about him that he was as driven and self-important as the Earps. Most likely he was envious of their rise to legendary status while he did not. Might make anyone jealous of the Earps.

I am just tired of "critics" trying to discredit everything about everybody!
The Earp family was not lily-white, but by most scholars agree that they were not villians either. There is also no information to be found that indicates Josephine was ever an alcoholic. If there is a source out there, post it.

Research proof

When you conduct research you have to prove your position with an open mind. If your material does not flow in one direction you have to stop at that point an except that your researched information is not correct.

This gun on the wall has a yarn attached to it that has absolutely no research to back it up. In fact when research is performed we find that Wyatt Earp was documented in Nome, Alaska under arrest for being involved in a drunken brawl from the Nome newspaper on June 29,1900. The same day the “yarn” claims he left Juneau.

The yarn claims a regular drunk ran up his bar tab at the Red Dog saloon and would use stolen artifacts from the then Territorial museum to pay off his tab.

A curator at the now Alaskan State Museum a Mr. Steve Hendrickson claims there is no record of any such gun ever being part of the museum collection either loaned or owned and he looked through the records. If it was part of the museum they would want it back! There is no statue of limitations for theft!

You have to ask yourself also if a bar owner would take payment for a bar tab with a stolen gun from a museum? That’s called receiving stolen property. Which of course proves it’s a yarn because if it was stolen they would want it back!! It’s also extremely hard to believe that someone from the museum would not remember a gun that belonged to Wyatt Earp as being part of their collection. I would think that it would be well remembered by museum personnel at that time. I think that’s obvious!

What also bugs me personally is that this gun has never been looked at closely. All the photo’s are very poor. If I owned it I would want it documented carefully. But then you would destroy the yarn by documenting the truth.

I’m not a believer in printing the legend(yarn). I support only the truth because the truth is rich with history and never ends.

Murph

I'm the firearms historian at the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne. In this area, there is a plethora of firearms that belonged to Tom Horn, the stock detective and paid killer hanged in Cheyenne in 1903.

One of said guns, a Colt SAA in .32-20, was shipped in 1906. The real story of the gun is at least as interesting. It belonged Earl Hayner, a Wyoming guide and outfitter in Park County. He served on the posse chasing Earl Durand. In March, 1939, Durand was jailed for taking elk out season. He escaped and killed two law enforcement officers who tried to take him into custody. He also killed two member of the posse.
He attempted to rob the bank in Powell, was shot by a teenager, crawled back into the bank and died by suicide.

Why would he have “ checked “ a gun at the Sheriff’s office?

The odds that Earp ever owned that gun are virtually nil.
If you assume that every story you ever heard about a gun or knife having belonged to some famous or notorious historical character is false, you will be right a least 90% of the time.
Even with the better museums, the fakery probably runs close to 40 to 50 percent.
Sometimes museums actually have the real thing on display initially, but. months or years down the road a museum employee will be secretly offered big bucks by someone who has aged and serial re-serial-numbered another gun that looks identical to the display piece.
Employee that is in need of cash takes the money, swaps out the guns.
Fake gun goes on display; museum employee gets a cash windfall, real-deal gun disappears (with copies of any provenance documents ) into wealthy domestic or foreign buyer’s VERY private collection.
Everybody’s happy.

If that gun in the Red Dog Bar was Wyatt's, no wonder he didn't want it back. Or maybe he checked in that poor excuse for a gun and kept the good one under his coat.

Are we badmouthing the condition of the gun or the New Model 3, 44 DA S&W?. I have owned and shot several 44 DAs over the years and they all worked flawlessly. It is true they had a lot more parts as compared to single action revolvers and would logically suffer more breakdowns. They were, however, the first large bore double action revolver made by Smith & Wesson and an important advancement of design. One can read lots about how poor quality this or that gun was, but most who write never held one in their hand and even less likely, shot them.



Same things are said about Colt's Lightning and Thunderer DAs, in 38 and 41 calibers, and the Model 1878 in 45 Colt. Lots of complaining by collectors as well. I believe much of it was from the late 1800s shooters who thought the company was basically sacrilegious to design a double action revolver because of their affinity to Colt SAAs. Reality is that all were also great advancements in design for their time and we should appreciate their history.

smoothshooter said:

Why would he have “ checked “ a gun at the Sheriff’s office?

The odds that Earp ever owned that gun are virtually nil.
If you assume that every story you ever heard about a gun or knife having belonged to some famous or notorious historical character is false, you will be right a least 90% of the time.
Even with the better museums, the fakery probably runs close to 40 to 50 percent.
Sometimes museums actually have the real thing on display initially, but. months or years down the road a museum employee will be secretly offered big bucks by someone who has aged and serial re-serial-numbered another gun that looks identical to the display piece.
Employee that is in need of cash takes the money, swaps out the guns.
Fake gun goes on display; museum employee gets a cash windfall, real-deal gun disappears (with copies of any provenance documents ) into wealthy domestic or foreign buyer’s VERY private collection.
Everybody’s happy.

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Do you have evidence or specific examples when this has happened? Or is it speculation on your part? I grant you that artifacts do go "missing" from museum collections.

I also agree that the gun in question was probably not owned by Earp.

I do exhaustive research on the provenance of firearms in our custody. We have no "fakes." I agree with you that oral history is notoriously unreliable.

We have a Colt Artillery Model SAA that is stamped with the name of a famous frontier scout. But the timeline of his life and the documented history of that particular handgun don't match up. I suspect the name was added in an attempt to increase collector value. The revolver is currently on exhibit with interpretation describing the research that led to our conclusion.

glowe said:

I believe there is lots of misinformation for just about every old-west figure out there including the guy you refer to. It is obvious in reading about him that he was as driven and self-important as the Earps. Most likely he was envious of their rise to legendary status while he did not. Might make anyone jealous of the Earps.

I am just tired of "critics" trying to discredit everything about everybody!
The Earp family was not lily-white, but by most scholars agree that they were not villians either. There is also no information to be found that indicates Josephine was ever an alcoholic. If there is a source out there, post it.

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You would be wrong about Ham Bell, Stuart Lake came to see him wanting to write a book about him, Bell turned him down, Stanley Vestal also came to see Bell before he wrote his book on Dodge City, as he did not trust the info Stuart Lake gave him about Dodge City & the Earps. The forerunner of Dodge City Days was the annual Ham Bell Picnic in Wright Park, until his death in 1947. He was mayor for many of his later years, & paid for a wreath for each deceased resident's funeral.

BMur said:

. . .There is no statue of limitations for theft! . . .

Murph

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Mr. Murph—there absolutly is a statute of limitations (SOL) on theft. I don’t have time to research what the exact SOL contemporaneous with Wyatt’s Alaskan days, but the current state of the law is 10 years on felony theft, 5 years on misdeamoner theft. Here is a good overview of SOL. About the only crimes without a SOL are the most heinous like murder, child trafficking, terrorism.

Just a moment...

Statue of limitations

I’m sorry John,

I suppose I should have been more specific.
I was not talking about the poor lowlife criminals limit of liability for theft. I was specifically talking about retrieving a stolen item!

There is no time limit for retrieving a stolen item. If you have a gun stolen from you, you fill out a police report, the gun shows up 75 years later on a dealers table? Or in this case on the wall of a bar? You get it back!

There is no time limit to getting what belongs to you back! A stolen gun from a museum still belongs to that museum with no statute of limitations for ownership.

That truly is what makes this So-called Earp Gun total fictitious.
The yarn sinks itself. The museum would want Earps gun back!

Unless you want to believe the drunk with the bar tab as being the only one on the planet that remembers the gun belonging to the museum? Laughable!


Murph

BMur said:

I’m sorry John,

I suppose I should have been more specific.
I was not talking about the poor lowlife criminals limit of liability for theft. I was specifically talking about retrieving a stolen item!

There is no time limit for retrieving a stolen item. If you have a gun stolen from you, you fill out a police report, the gun shows up 75 years later on a dealers table? Or in this case on the wall of a bar? You get it back!

There is no time limit to getting what belongs to you back! A stolen gun from a museum still belongs to that museum with no statute of limitations for ownership.

That truly is what makes this So-called Earp Gun total fictitious.
The yarn sinks itself. The museum would want Earps gun back!

Murph

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Mr. Murph—you are going to have to help me out even more here now that you have explained that you were talking about recovering stolen property. You say there is no time limit for recovering stolen property. Really?

Under what legal theory do you proceed civilly? The statutes of limitation under civil remedies like replevin are generally 3 years, 5 years max. Far more limiting than the criminal statutes.

Benton Quest said:

Does Wyatt seem like the guy that would check a gun in and then forget about it?

Seems odd.

The provenance thing can be difficult. I have an early Colt Commander that they say Wyatt carried, but I have my doubts.

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NO CHANCE....The earliest Colt Commander came out of the factory in 1949 and Wyatt Earp died Jan 13, 1929.