Grail guns do NOT exist - they are like Unicorns!

[Modified]

One of my "grail" guns would be Clark Gable's Registered Magnum. Don't ask me why "his" RM meant more than any other one but note a recent auction on Gary Cooper's RM that sold a few months back.

I hear you. Ever since seeing I think it was D.B. Wesson's RM with Kearsarge stocks I've dreamed about it.

The thing I want to say though is about that Gary Cooper RM. I can't imagine having paid what that went for with that sketchy provenance. It really didn't seem rock solid, I was surprised it went for what it did.

Charlie:

Those three S&Ws that you posted are quite the stunners!!! I would also say that as soon as I find and purchase a "grail gun" I always seem to be able to find one or two more to take their place on the "grail list". "Just one more..." is the oft repeated justification of a S&W addict...





... while you're at it, you might as well get it class A engraved...

This pre-10 M&P, sold at auction in 2009 to someone other than me, is pretty close to the K-frame version of what you're looking for, including: the "smaller" trigger guard Roper Grips, what looks like the King Super Police mods, and as a bonus - it is engraved. Here is a link to the auction: *FINE ARNOLD GREIBEL ENGRAVED SMITH & WESSON PRE-MODEL 10 DA REVOLVER.

Photos from the auction:

Although not a fan of Fitzed trigger guards, nor polished hammers, this "grail gun" does in fact exist and it is on my covet list...

The Fitzing, Engraving, Trigger Shoe, and Jeweling just ruin this gun for me.

A King super police night sight gun is a working gun. That thing was made to sit in a safe, or made to sit in a safe. I don't know.

The more I looked at that gun when it came up (which, I will admit, started off with a lot of lust in my heart), the more I grew to dislike it. It's...wrong. It's not what it should be.

I know I'm probably the weird one but the only thing that particular gun actually does for me is to stoke the fire of hope in my heart that I will eventually find a pre-war M&P 2" that King did that sight job to. It's a sight job I just adore. It's not like it's especially valuable, but I just find that I love it a lot on my one gun with both front/rear super police, and my other gun with rear super police.

 

[model3sw]

A Past Grail Conquest "Fratelli Gemelli Volcanico Raimondi"

I named the pair "Fratelli Gemelli Volcanico Raimondi" for my twin sons.

When my twin sons were born in 1994, I began a "Identical Pair" and "consecutive number" binge. Not for anything new and not for anything common.

I owned the one on bottom since appx 1995 and the other a few years later ... long before a World's Record "Believe it or Not" Auction Sale price of $143,000 in December 2007, at a "Famous Large" auction house. Another one of the "Believe it or Nots" that I still can not reason with nor believe.

The second one (top) found its way to me from a retired Florida Sheriff. a Southerner with roots 100 years prior to Civil War. He and I tried to connect this Volcanic to the Confederate officer that owned it but were not able to document it past GrandMa's words to him when he was a child.

The New Haven offered in that December 2007 Auction was the identical model as both shown. It was engraved (as both shown) however, it did not have any remnants of the Silver finish. It was marketed as a no finish (from the factory) gun. It also had a part of (or the entire) lower section of what was presented to be the original 1856-ish unmarked box (seemed an old faux marble finish pressed cardboard).

As I had never encountered a New Haven Arms Volcanic that was engraved but not Silver finished (it always leaves some evidence somewhere even if all the exterior silver is gone).

When I wrote the Auction House to inquire, asking for photos with the stocks removed and a picture of the internals (very easy process) ... I did not get a polite reply.

In this vintage, the silver plating over the brass frames was very soft as compared to newer finishes. Over the years the silver on these would either flake off (sometimes as it never existed) or would start to wear in a fashion that us old Auto Restoration / Refinisher guys call "feather-edge", as exemplified on both of mine. The silver is "Feathering" back having quite nice percentage of silver coverage intact.

A light polish or a jewelers cloth on this would feather edge further taking off more silver, so, it gets only wiped with a soft cotton lint cloth, wrapped dry in light weight (soft) VCI Corrosion prevention paper back into a heated / dry environment.

 

[cmansguns]

More grail comments

Thanks to all who posted responses to my grail thread yesterday. I started it in jest (my old class clown days just never go away), but after seeing the absolutely stunning guns in the responses, I have some additional thoughts. I will never be in the class of "serious" collectors, like Sal & co. simply because the "piles of money thing" but I can let Sal & co. do my dreaming...thanks to this Forum.

I 100% agree with others who say the "next one" is the grail gun......I get great pleasure just stopping in sometime at LGS and being the ONLY guy at the far end of the long...long...long counter of handguns because there in a little 4 foot long display are the ONLY revolvers, and very few S & W's, but the Owner is a recognized contributor to Richard & Jim's SCSW 4th so he has always got some real treasures in the huge safe located in the back room AND he has drool napkins for my use when occasionally viewing!

So what I'm thinking is we need all new "Classes" of Collectors. Some thing like "Serious"; "Semi-Serious"; "Wannabe Serious"; "Class A Accumulators, Class B, etc."; right down to the Folks like me......just plain nuts and can't explain a thing.

Come to think about it.........this Forum already has all the types and more....so we all are probably either full time or part time "Grail Hunters"!

Again....thanks to all for posting some absolutely stunning guns and stories.....keep them coming as that what "ropes in the newbies".....it sure did to me.

 

[quinn]

You fail to see the forest my friend. The true purpose of any good forum is to continually move the goal posts. "Handejector" is an insidious rascal--like a Leprechaun with a rainbow.

 

[RKmesa]

... The Fitzing, Engraving, Trigger Shoe, and Jeweling just ruin this gun for me.

A King super police night sight gun is a working gun. That thing was made to sit in a safe, or made to sit in a safe. I don't know.

The more I looked at that gun when it came up (which, I will admit, started off with a lot of lust in my heart), the more I grew to dislike it. It's...wrong. It's not what it should be.

Yes... but do you like the Ropers or the front sight...

I have a bit of a different take. My guess is that this was a working gun at some point in its life and the Super Police mods, the bobbing of the hammer, and the Fitz-ing of the trigger guard were done long before it was engraved. All were period modifications that appear to have been performed by competent gunsmiths.

I love the pristine from the factory guns, but I also love well-used and well-modified guns, even if I would not have commissioned the particular modification.

The owner probably decided to commemorate some milestone in his life by having a gun engraved. Perhaps he no longer carried this little guy - he'd purchased one of those 1950 357's, or that new K-Frame Combat Magnum, or maybe even a 44 Mag. that were all the rage in the 1950s. So, he sent this past favorite off to Arnold Griebel for some retirement decoration. I love the engraving on that beauty! Also, whose to say that engraved guns cannot be shot and carried - I just had a 3" Model 13 shooter engraved and I plan on it continuing to be a "shooter", carried in a holster and in my rotation of guns that I shoot.

The thing that makes me really happy is that all of us collectors do not think alike - we all like things just a bit different and oft times the grail guns that each of us want are something different.

BTW - your 45 Super Police is one of my all time favorites and finding one like it would make room for another "grail gun" to move onto my list!!!

 

[rct269]

Grail guns are like rabbits. In the beginning, there was only one.

Then, and nobody knows how or why, there was another one.

And after that, WATCH OUT!!

Ralph Tremaine

 

[keith44spl]

Sometimes, ya jest got to build yur own.........

Er.........

.

 

[shouldazagged]

I'm a simple man with simple tastes.

I have no money for buying guns--had to sell one to afford cataract surgery--but if I did, my first choice would be easy. It would be nice clean, mechanically sound Model 64 with a four-inch standard barrel. Next choice would be a LNIB Detective Special 2. Third, though I haven't been physically able to hunt for years, a clean 1950's vintage Ithaca 37 twelve gauge, 26" Improved Cylinder. That one would a sentimental pick. My late brother had one that had been owned by his father-in-law. His daughter has it now, and shoots it.

 

[Dieseltech56]

My safe is over flowing with grail guns. There's always one or 2 more still out there though