Do you know "the story" of your gun?

[EdwardM]

I have lettered three of my antique S&W's so I know when they were shipped and to whom (all went to a distributor). While I am pleased to have that information that is where my "stories" end. The individual(s) who owned them and where they went are lost to history.

I was wondering if many of you have antique or just older (say 50+ years) revolvers of which you DO know that history? Perhaps family heirlooms or purchased from someone who knew such information?

We often use the phrase "if only they could talk" but a reliable history might be a close second to that desire.

Sadly, I suspect few of us have that information but would be interested in hearing from those that do.

Ned

 

[sub349]

Actually I have two and am requesting letters for both.
Number 1 is a 1902 Model M&P .38 Spl that was owned and carried by a distant relative who became like a grandfather to me....he operated a private detective agency in north central Indiana from early 1900's until 1940's. Was a county sheriff in the 19 teens and was briefly one of Indiana's 1st State police officers when it was known as the Indiana Motor Police. Shows wear, dings, has replacement grips but has its own story to tell. This gentlemen kept scrapbooks of crimes in which he was involved in tracking down the offenders. Was interesting that these were not such crime-free times. A 20 mile car trip might get you held-up by 'highwaymen'. The filling station where I used to go on my bike for nickel cokes in the 40's was held up by armed robbers 3-4 times in the 20's and early 30's.

Number 2 is a cut-off 1st Model New Departure(Lemon Squeezer) 38 S&W which my father who was a LEO in the 1930's, 40's, and 50's sometimes carried as his off-duty piece.

 

[deadin]

I have 3 and maybe 4. A Model 1 1/2 .32 RF with family history, A Frontier DA 44/40 with family History (both back to original owner) and a .455 MK1 Triple Lock 1st British Contract with the Military history of the original owner. The 4th one is a .22 Single Shot 2nd Model sent to a "C.W. Flannigan" in 1910. I have found a possible match to an exhibition shooter of the period that lived in the area where I found the gun. So far this is a little tenuous, but I'm still researching....

 

[johngross]

Here's a Number 2 shipped in March of 1864 to
Robinson, and presented a month later to Captain
Charles Tobey of the 58th Mass Volunteers. Tobey
was wounded twice in 1864, captured and held a
POW for five months.

I made contact with Tobey's gggrandson who supplied me
with five wartime images of Tobey, and after an article I
wrote about Tobey and his revolver was published a
collector contacted me and said he had Tobey's sword.

In the picture of Tobey below, taken late in the war,
note the disfigurement to the fingers on his left
hand from one of his wounds.

John Gross

 

[EdwardM]

Mr. Gross:

A very interesting history.

I also have a Model 2; it was shipped in July 1864 to J.W. Storrs but, as I indicated in my original post, that is the extent of my information.

Obviously a Civil War era gun but whether it was ever carried in the conflict is unknown to me.

Thanks to all for the replies.

Ned

 

[Dosgatos]

This .22 Single Shot Model of 1891 was shipped to Philip Bekeart & Co., San Francisco, in March of 1905. It was purchased by Morve Weaver who had his name engraved on the left side of the barrel assembly. Mr. Weaver was the City Engineer of Visalia CA and apparently a competitive target shooter. He was also an amateur historian who published an article on the Custer Battle, though I have been unable to obtain a copy. His gun, though worn, still operates perfectly with a very nice trigger-pull. I found it in a gunshop in Southern Oregon, where it was being sold as part of a collection which also included a Schofield, Baby Russian, Model 2, and a New Model 3.

 

[Club Gun Fan]

I have letters for all my S&W's. I consider the fee for a letter, part of the price I pay for a gun. Some letters are run of the mill, went to a distributor or dealer. I have about 30 that letter to specific people. I have 3 that letter to members of the Springfield Revolver Club. 5 that letter to Smith & Wesson employees, including my Revolving Rifle Serial number 1 that letters to Joseph Wesson. It's like Christmas when you get the letter back and read the results.

 

[gwpercle]

I guess the smart thing for us to do is keep some kind of journal or log of the firearms we purchase or inherit.
Possibly recording the history of both new and old guns as we know it. For insurance purposes I started photographing my guns and keeping the sales receipts or history of how I obtained a gun. Some are inherited and I should write down what information I was told. After I'm gone my kids won't remember or even know the stories my mother related when she gave me her father's guns. The hard part will be keeping the journal and gun together.
Unwritten histories can sometimes be totaly wrong. Like the pair of Manhatten Fireams, cap and ball revolvers in black military style holesters from my dad's side of the family. Oral history had them as belonging to a Civil War calvary soldier from dads side of the family.
That family history was put to rest last year when a search of the serial numbers revealed they were 5th models made between 1867 and 1868. And all my life I believed that story, truth is I don't have the story on this interesting set of revolvers at all....and it is a shame, thier story has been lost forever.

gary

 

[EdwardM]

Very much enjoying and appreciating your responses.

Gary: The journal idea certainly has merit. The more information we can pass on the better.

One of my pet peeves is old photos that have no identification on them. We have quite a few old family photos but both my and my wifes parents are gone and we have no way of knowing who these folks are.

Ned

 

[teezer]

My most notable gun that i've owned is one owned by Charles Lindbergh, a H&R nickle top break 32 caliber. He surrendered this gun to the police chief of Flemington, New Jersey prior to entering the courthouse in the trial of Bruno Hauptmann in 1934.

This was part of a collection i bought from the son of police chief John Walters in 1994 or 1995. Also included in this collection were the shackles used on Hauptmann to transport him from the jail to court, a mimeograph copy of the death order, a Flemington chief of police badge, a custom made presentation badge given to him by Walter Winchell and engraved on back thanking him for his professional service to the news corps, and a large scrapbook collected by Chief Walters and his wife.

then a collector gave me a whole bunch of money for this

very interesting read of the scrapbook




.

 

[Thuer]

OK. It isn't a Smith and Wesson but a Webley MK V.

I first saw this revolver a a police station where I was back in 2000 to do some paperwork for the gunstore I worked for.

An policeofficer came in with a revolver in his hand. I looked at it and say "nice a Webley MK VI" . When he opened his hand I could see that the revolver didn't had a square back grip but a birdhead.

It is the more scare Webley MK V. I asked what are you planned to do with this revolver. The officer says that the meaning was that it could go to our shop to sell it. I was very fast the new owner.

The former owner was far in his 90 ties and gets rid of the revolver.

I was getting curious, so I phoned the old owner. I did get's his wife on the phone.

The revolver was used by Captain West ter Veer in the Dutch colony Indie to guard the Japanese prissioners of war right after the war.

The captain himself was captured early that war and was forced to work for the Japanese under very bad conditions.
When he was released he get's his function back and the role's where turned.
I do know that the captain never fired this revolver against any person.


Unfortulaty I coulden'd get more information about this story. Becouse I was getting very sick and had to do some other things such as fighting against cancer.


It is now 12 years later, the captain and his wife are long gone now.

Maybe it is time to figure out more details now.

Anyway, I love this sturdy old revolver with roots back in WW I.

 

[deadin]

Nice looking "Wobbley"

I've always liked the Mk V as it just seems to look more "British", if you know what I mean..

 

[Thuer]

Yes, I do have a soft spot for those very Britisch revolvers.

If you shoot the .455 webley you can almost see the bullet fly.

 

[Green Frog]

OK, I have a 1st Model 2nd Issue (in 22 short, of course) that my father inherited from his elderly uncle, then gave to me. It's been in the family since before the turn of the last century when my grand uncle's father (so the story goes) found it in a rut in the road where it had been run over by a wagon or carriage, breaking one grip. Uncle Raymond would have been a youngster at the time, but his father gave it to him to play with. He made a new grip to replace the broken one and somewhere along the way reblued the portions of the gun that were supposed to be blued. The bore is pretty rotten and the silver plate is badly worn, indicating the gun had probably led a long and adventurous life even before it came into Uncle Ray's possession, but other than needing a stronger cylinder catch spring, it's in good enough shape to shoot (with CB caps only of course.) It's still accurate, too... I seldom miss the 25 yard backstop!

Froggie

 

[spaniel]

I recently lettered my great-great-grandfather's S&W which I inherited. The letter did not tell me an awful lot other than all parts appear to be as it was originally shipped. But it is nice to have even that much confirmation. I do have and am documenting as much additional history as is known by my grandmother.

I also inherited the family's oldest heirloom, a muzzleloader that has been in the family since AT LEAST the 1860s, probably longer but that much is lost to history. From the tidbits of stories known in the family I have been able to determine that he carried it in the Ontario Militia during the Feinian Raids of 1866. That in and of itself is a pretty interesting piece of history. The gun lives in a shadow box, along with the belt from his militia uniform, which is in good shape.

 

[murphydog]

I have a .38 M & P shipped in 1918 that I obtained from the original owner's grandson, which shipped to Belknap Hardware in Louisville, KY but traveled 120 miles to where it was originally purchased. I also have an early post-war 2" Kit Gun and baby Chiefs Special that were bought by a central Oregon police officer (later chief of the town's PD) and sold to me by his son.

Whenever I buy guns from a family member I always ask for a brief history, and if they have it I've never been turned down.

 

[stantheman86]

Sadly, no...........I have PD marked S&W's but I have no idea by whom they were carried or what they have seen. Lettering a lot of my guns would be useless since all it would give me is probably a store or a distributor.

I like to think that I am part of their history and God willing after I pass on, guns will still be legal and maybe in 100 years, someone will be looking at guns I owned and be saying the same thing "Wish this one could talk........"

 

[1891SingleShot]

I have a Smith & Wesson 1891 Single Shot with a bit of local history. Apparently, sometime in the early 1900's, a wealthy man named Magill (I think my dad thought he was a doctor, but that's not for certain) from the Chicago area visited the area near Mylo, ND, where I live. He liked the country and bought land near a small lake called Island Lake. He built a big house, barn and horse barn, complete with servants quarters. He was an avid hunter and even built some duck pits on the island in the middle of the lake. When he would travel to the area, his servants would travel with him. I'm not sure when he died or quit coming to the area, but sometime in the 1940's, either his brother or his nephew was still coming to stay on the place and my grandfather bought this single shot from him for $10. He also told my grandpa he had a set of nickle Colt .45's complete with holster rig in the attic and he would dig them out someday and sell them to him for $50. Well, the old guy died before that happened so we don't know what happened to the Colts. Later on the house burned, (I don't know if it was intentional due to condition or not), the barn burned, but the horse barn with servants quarters are still standing. It was acutally lived in until about 15 years ago, when the now owners of the farm put up a new house. According to the factory letter, the Single Shot was manufactured in 1900 and shipped to Hartley & Graham Co., in New York..That was the first S&W in the family and is what started the interest in the top-breaks for me and my dad, years later.

 

[EdwardM]

My thanks once again for your stories.

I'll be away for a few days and probably won't have the chance to check this thread but rest assured once I return I'll do so and hope to see more.

Ned

 

[opoefc]

The story I'm still researching involves Registered Magnum # 100. Oral history is that it was Jimmie Stewart's gun, probably bought at Kerr's or the Hollywood Gun Shop in 1935. Jimmie, Gary Cooper & Clark Gable were all friends, shooters & gun collectors. Gary & Clark saw Jimmie's RM and decided they need one also, so they bought their's at Kerr's Gun shop in Hollywood, according to Rocky Cooper,Gary's widow. When Gary died, I bought his RM from Rocky, thru Kerr's. Then a friend of mine said he had Carbine William's RM and would sell it to me, so I bought it. It turned out to have been Jimmy Stewart's RM which he gave to Carbine Williams after Jimmy made the movie "Carbine Williams" in the late 1940s. Carbine was the consultant on the movie. Carbine later gave, or traded, the RM to Hy Hunter in the 1950s when Carbine was helping Hy get started in turning out Hy's copy of the Colt SAA revolver. Hy later sold the RM to Blaine Hutchison, a gun dealer friend in Southern Calif. I knew Blaine and he told me he later sold the gun to another friend of mine, and years later I bought the gun from him. The S&WHF records show the gun going to a Los Angeles S&W distributor, but I've yet to locate the link between the distributor & the gun store where Stewart bought the gun. It was not a special order by Stewart, apparently he saw it at a gun store and then decided to buy it. It has the 8 3/4in barrel, and is in 99% original condition. My goal is to have a display of three RMs at a future S&WCA meeting, one each as owned by Stewart and Marsh "Carbine" Williams, Cooper & Gable. I wanted to make it four guns, but my friend John Wayne told me he never owned a Registered Magnum. Too bad for John! That's my story and I'm sticking' to it ! Ed. (PS: There's a picture of me holding the gun at a Tulsa Gun show "Show & tell" session in 2009, in the photo Album portion of this Forum, page 15.)