RM Vivas
US Veteran
I've been getting more and more requests as of late to provide data on NYCPD guns.
I've always done this gratis and will, for now, continue to do so. However, I have reached the point where I'm looking at the amount of time I've put into organizing and maintaining these records and have decided that while I will continue (for the moment) to do it on the arm, I am going to throw a 'tip jar' out there.
Now when I send people emails with their guns pedigree/data I have included a link to an Amazon book wish list. I'm looking to flesh out my library a bit and if someone thinks the info I have provided them is of some value, they can get me a book to help with my research on other guns. A little value, an inexpensive book. You feel it's got more value, a bit pricier book. Cheap ******* like me? No book, but hey thanks for your time! Some people can tip and some can't. If someone wants a gun lettered and can't or won't tip, that's fine. Its not like when you ask the next time, I'm going to consult some list and say 'nope, you didn't kick in'. Our hobby has enough limitations and threats against it, helpful information should be free.
As I thought about this completely voluntary and optional change, I thought it might be a good idea to show exactly how these records are set up.
The records themselves were large ledger books that went back as far as approximately 1926 or so. The books were kept at the NYPD Equipment Bureau, or at least were when I got my hands on them. They were in pretty rough shape and most were falling apart. A half-assed attempt at putting them back together was made in 1997 or so.
I managed to take all the surviving books and make copies of the relevant pages. Note that I did not copy ALL the pages, just the ones that seemed relevant at the time. I greatly regret not having copied all the pages now.
Once the books were copied, the copies were placed in folders, each folder corresponding to a particular book.
The next step was indexing the folders and the pages within. Each page contained 35-37 entries. I've never really counted the total number of entries I had to do. I know that for the Chiefs Special/M36's alone there are about 15,000 entries. I would try to log in 3 pages worth of guns per night (roughly 100 guns). The whole process took about 2 years, with some breaks here and there.
The process of entering the data was limited to three fields: Gun Serial Number, Date of Sale, Ledger book & Page Number. When someone asks me to run a gun, those are the only fields I have. That's why when someone says 'My dad was a Detective in 1962, can you tell me what serial number his gun was?' I can't do it. Until a couple weeks ago, searching by name is not an option.
Why was searching by name not an option? Simply because the initial plan was to list by serial number and then do a manual search through the records. Also, some of the handwriting is spectacularly difficult to read (more on this in a bit). Someone emails me and asks 'Hey, what do you have on a Victory #V141967?' I look in the computer for that S/N and it says:
'V141967 23NOV42 Book 42-46 p. 19'
I then go to the Magical Filing Cabinets of History and pull out the folder labelled Book 42-46. I turn to page 19 and see that the gun was sold on 23NOV42 to Probationary Patrolman <name illegible> Shield #2284 Assigned to Police Academy.
Sounds simple right?
Well, lets look at what the actual entry in the ledger book looks like:
Ow! Hurts the eyes doesn't it?
All the entries are handwritten and some of the officers in the Equipment Bureau did not have the best penmanship. I've looked at thousands of entries and have learned to recognize different selling officers by their handwriting. I've also learned their writing idiosyncrasies. I know which guys made their two's look like seven's, their W's look like M's and so forth.
That is why until recently, I was unable to search by name.
About a month ago I was doing some research on Trophy Gun winners and noticed that ---SOMETIMES--- the announcement about Trophy Gun winners, especially before the 1950's, included a list of all the graduates in that class.
This got me thinking. The vast majority of entries in the ledger books were guys buying their first gun. Very few were guys already on the job buying a replacement piece. Could I take a list of guys graduating in a class from the marvelously legible printed lists and compare it to the Sanskrit-like etchings in the ledger books? I would not need the officers full name from the ledger book; a partial name and initial would be sufficient.
The trick was figuring out when a graduating class bought their guns versus when they graduated. Focusing on WW2 Victory and Commando revolvers I learned that the recruits usually were sworn in on a Monday and the very next day (!) got their guns and shields (wow has that changed!). Then they did three months or so of training and graduated.
So here is what I discovered. If I pull up page 8 & 9 of the Department magazine Spring 3100 V14 No. 1 March 1943 we come across a two-page list of guys who graduated on 17FEB43.
Now if we look at that entry for gun V141967 we see the first name looks like NEWMAN or NEWTON or something similar. The last name is tougher to read (I can read it but only because I've been studying this guys handwriting for several years).
We run down the list of graduates and find a single person with a similar name: Newton A. WEISINGER.
Now that we have a very likely full name, I go over to Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.com, plug in the name and variations of it and see what comes up. In this case nothing specifically for Newton A. WEISINGER but an obituary for a Newton Alfred WEISINGER comes up in Boca Raton FL in 1982. The obit states the decedent was a NYC cop and died at age 64. That means he would have been born in 1918 and come on 'Da Job at age 25 (1943). A quick look at the list of graduates shows the average age was 26. With a high degree of certainty, that's the guy!
And thus, my ability to tie an actual name to a gun went from a %10-15 to the very high 90's!
As I update my database searchable fields will now be:
Make
Model
Serial number
Date of sale
Name
Shield #
Command
Date of Graduation
This way of getting names finally attached to almost illegible records will be a huge boon to my database but also a tremendous amount of work, as I will basically have to re-do every single entry. And that's where the Improve My Library Tip Jar comes in
I've always done this gratis and will, for now, continue to do so. However, I have reached the point where I'm looking at the amount of time I've put into organizing and maintaining these records and have decided that while I will continue (for the moment) to do it on the arm, I am going to throw a 'tip jar' out there.
Now when I send people emails with their guns pedigree/data I have included a link to an Amazon book wish list. I'm looking to flesh out my library a bit and if someone thinks the info I have provided them is of some value, they can get me a book to help with my research on other guns. A little value, an inexpensive book. You feel it's got more value, a bit pricier book. Cheap ******* like me? No book, but hey thanks for your time! Some people can tip and some can't. If someone wants a gun lettered and can't or won't tip, that's fine. Its not like when you ask the next time, I'm going to consult some list and say 'nope, you didn't kick in'. Our hobby has enough limitations and threats against it, helpful information should be free.
As I thought about this completely voluntary and optional change, I thought it might be a good idea to show exactly how these records are set up.
The records themselves were large ledger books that went back as far as approximately 1926 or so. The books were kept at the NYPD Equipment Bureau, or at least were when I got my hands on them. They were in pretty rough shape and most were falling apart. A half-assed attempt at putting them back together was made in 1997 or so.
I managed to take all the surviving books and make copies of the relevant pages. Note that I did not copy ALL the pages, just the ones that seemed relevant at the time. I greatly regret not having copied all the pages now.
Once the books were copied, the copies were placed in folders, each folder corresponding to a particular book.
The next step was indexing the folders and the pages within. Each page contained 35-37 entries. I've never really counted the total number of entries I had to do. I know that for the Chiefs Special/M36's alone there are about 15,000 entries. I would try to log in 3 pages worth of guns per night (roughly 100 guns). The whole process took about 2 years, with some breaks here and there.
The process of entering the data was limited to three fields: Gun Serial Number, Date of Sale, Ledger book & Page Number. When someone asks me to run a gun, those are the only fields I have. That's why when someone says 'My dad was a Detective in 1962, can you tell me what serial number his gun was?' I can't do it. Until a couple weeks ago, searching by name is not an option.
Why was searching by name not an option? Simply because the initial plan was to list by serial number and then do a manual search through the records. Also, some of the handwriting is spectacularly difficult to read (more on this in a bit). Someone emails me and asks 'Hey, what do you have on a Victory #V141967?' I look in the computer for that S/N and it says:
'V141967 23NOV42 Book 42-46 p. 19'
I then go to the Magical Filing Cabinets of History and pull out the folder labelled Book 42-46. I turn to page 19 and see that the gun was sold on 23NOV42 to Probationary Patrolman <name illegible> Shield #2284 Assigned to Police Academy.
Sounds simple right?
Well, lets look at what the actual entry in the ledger book looks like:
Ow! Hurts the eyes doesn't it?
All the entries are handwritten and some of the officers in the Equipment Bureau did not have the best penmanship. I've looked at thousands of entries and have learned to recognize different selling officers by their handwriting. I've also learned their writing idiosyncrasies. I know which guys made their two's look like seven's, their W's look like M's and so forth.
That is why until recently, I was unable to search by name.
About a month ago I was doing some research on Trophy Gun winners and noticed that ---SOMETIMES--- the announcement about Trophy Gun winners, especially before the 1950's, included a list of all the graduates in that class.
This got me thinking. The vast majority of entries in the ledger books were guys buying their first gun. Very few were guys already on the job buying a replacement piece. Could I take a list of guys graduating in a class from the marvelously legible printed lists and compare it to the Sanskrit-like etchings in the ledger books? I would not need the officers full name from the ledger book; a partial name and initial would be sufficient.
The trick was figuring out when a graduating class bought their guns versus when they graduated. Focusing on WW2 Victory and Commando revolvers I learned that the recruits usually were sworn in on a Monday and the very next day (!) got their guns and shields (wow has that changed!). Then they did three months or so of training and graduated.
So here is what I discovered. If I pull up page 8 & 9 of the Department magazine Spring 3100 V14 No. 1 March 1943 we come across a two-page list of guys who graduated on 17FEB43.
Now if we look at that entry for gun V141967 we see the first name looks like NEWMAN or NEWTON or something similar. The last name is tougher to read (I can read it but only because I've been studying this guys handwriting for several years).
We run down the list of graduates and find a single person with a similar name: Newton A. WEISINGER.
Now that we have a very likely full name, I go over to Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.com, plug in the name and variations of it and see what comes up. In this case nothing specifically for Newton A. WEISINGER but an obituary for a Newton Alfred WEISINGER comes up in Boca Raton FL in 1982. The obit states the decedent was a NYC cop and died at age 64. That means he would have been born in 1918 and come on 'Da Job at age 25 (1943). A quick look at the list of graduates shows the average age was 26. With a high degree of certainty, that's the guy!
And thus, my ability to tie an actual name to a gun went from a %10-15 to the very high 90's!
As I update my database searchable fields will now be:
Make
Model
Serial number
Date of sale
Name
Shield #
Command
Date of Graduation
This way of getting names finally attached to almost illegible records will be a huge boon to my database but also a tremendous amount of work, as I will basically have to re-do every single entry. And that's where the Improve My Library Tip Jar comes in
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