This is a very interesting post. I've looked at signature until my eyes are crossed trying to come up with a name. Anyone that has ever tried to write on wood knows how the grain can redirect your pencil. I can see every name that has been thrown out for consideration so far and could agree. Decided to go another route and research most common male names during early 1900's. George is 4th most common first name and Smith is number one last name. Surely not...but that last name just may be Smith.
**LETTER ARRIVED**A S&W with a mystery attached. Need help deciphering....
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Maybe Vigil had it reblued to remove the blood marks after he took if off of Geo's dead body laying on Main St. after the shoot-out? Ya think?
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If the OP could post more photos of the stock panel with the writing, at different angles and lighting, we may be able to see it better?
dennis2146
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But the name would not be from the early 1900's but maybe more likely the 1870's or 1880's. The man didn't have the gun as a child but presumably as an adult. He would have been born 20-30 years earlier.
Dennis
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Neat history! That last name looks like it starts with a D. Maybe Drita or Dvata. I think that the second is most likely. There is a little "hook" cutting through the edge of the first letter. There is an Albanian surname of Drita, and there was even a current Gheorghe Drita listed on the Namespedia.com website.
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George Hopkins Cater.
Go to www.familysearch.org and search on his name. The guy lived in several places in Nevada, including Esmeralda County. To my eyes, the signature on this registration card resembles the writing on the inside surface of the stock panel.
I'm not certain this is a correct identification for the gun's owner, but the odds look good to me.
Go to www.familysearch.org and search on his name. The guy lived in several places in Nevada, including Esmeralda County. To my eyes, the signature on this registration card resembles the writing on the inside surface of the stock panel.
I'm not certain this is a correct identification for the gun's owner, but the odds look good to me.
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THE PILGRIM
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Take a look at this list.
Do you recognize anybody?
http://files.usgwarchives.net/nv/esmeralda/business/goldfield1907fk.txt
Do you recognize anybody?
http://files.usgwarchives.net/nv/esmeralda/business/goldfield1907fk.txt
OP
policerevolvercollector
Member
It looks that way to me also.
I wonder what George would have thought about us trying to decipher his signature 112 years later and doing the research on the internet.
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Absalom
SWCA Member, Absent Comrade
Good one. The odds look good to me, too.
I'm no forensic handwriting expert by a long shot, but comparing the two names, there is only one discrepancy that would make me pause, the additional hook after the first letter of the last name on the wood (red arrow). Elsewise, very similar, especially considering the awkwardness of writing on wobbly wood.
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The hook is like Cater's, but notice that the writing on the stock ties the first letter to the second at the midpoint, while Cater ties C to A at the baseline. I'm not an examiner, either, but was partnered with one for a few years and picked up what he looked for. The medium could made a difference, too. Wood vs. paper, rounded bottom vs. flat. Cater looks promising.
OP
policerevolvercollector
Member
Cater is looking very good for this especially when you compare the signature on the stocks to the second (lower) signature on the draft card.
It looks to me like the George and Cater in the signature at the bottom don't match the George and Cater written at the top. The Hopkins looks the same both places but the one at the top looks like it was written at a different time as that George Cater, like whoever wrote at the top didn't know his middle name and he wrote it in when he signed it.
The other G's on the registration do seem to match the G's on the grips though but why would the person filling out the registration in 1918 write 1906 on George's grips?
The other G's on the registration do seem to match the G's on the grips though but why would the person filling out the registration in 1918 write 1906 on George's grips?
One more data point:
Even though the name George H. Cater can be found in different censuses, it's not clear that they are all the same person. In 1930, however, there is a George H. Cater living in the greater Los Angeles area with his wife and two adult sons. His occupation is reported as "Mining." and his industry is "Gold Mine." Gotta ask yourself, what are the odds?
Even though the name George H. Cater can be found in different censuses, it's not clear that they are all the same person. In 1930, however, there is a George H. Cater living in the greater Los Angeles area with his wife and two adult sons. His occupation is reported as "Mining." and his industry is "Gold Mine." Gotta ask yourself, what are the odds?
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One more comment on handwriting. There was a time when "penmanship" was a class in Elementary School. I'm not sure how a crack on the knuckles was supposed to improve your handwriting, but it did.
My handwriting and my father's were almost identical, because we had been taught from the same book by the same sadist.
In other words, you could expect people of a similar education level to have similar hands, in that the capital C would or would not have a tail based more on the text book (Palmer, in this case) than individual self-expression. The angle of the script and the connections between letters tell more than the shape of the letters, as these were more idiosyncratic.
Look familiar?
The Ancestry Insider: Search results for Palmer
That said, after reading bdmoss88's post, I realized I had looked at where Cater's name appears as data on the draft card, not at the signature. I don't see a man who had written so neatly on wood with a pencil at 24 making that signature on paper with ink at 36. My guess is that Cater signed the draft card after it had been filled in by Peterson.
Like DCWilson, I still like the name Cater as a possibility, just not this Cater.
My handwriting and my father's were almost identical, because we had been taught from the same book by the same sadist.
In other words, you could expect people of a similar education level to have similar hands, in that the capital C would or would not have a tail based more on the text book (Palmer, in this case) than individual self-expression. The angle of the script and the connections between letters tell more than the shape of the letters, as these were more idiosyncratic.
Look familiar?
The Ancestry Insider: Search results for Palmer
That said, after reading bdmoss88's post, I realized I had looked at where Cater's name appears as data on the draft card, not at the signature. I don't see a man who had written so neatly on wood with a pencil at 24 making that signature on paper with ink at 36. My guess is that Cater signed the draft card after it had been filled in by Peterson.
Like DCWilson, I still like the name Cater as a possibility, just not this Cater.
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This whole thread is just too cool for school as they say.
Ain't the info you can find on the internet a wunnerful and amazing thing?
Ain't the info you can find on the internet a wunnerful and amazing thing?
Absalom
SWCA Member, Absent Comrade
The differences between the name at the top and the bottom may or may not be explainable by the need to squeeze the signature into a rather narrow line, which tends to throw off patterns.
However, I am reasonably certain that John Peterson did not fill in anything on the front of the card. His handwriting as reflected in his signature looks nothing like Cater's: Peterson's is the hand of someone who writes with discipline, order, and routine (like a registrar
), none of which is evident with Cater's information.As for the difference in neatness between the wood and the form, one could expect someone to be more fussy, carefully holding the grip panel steady while fitting the information he wants to get onto the wood in the space he has, compared to filling in a form, maybe standing at a counter in an office, an annoying duty you just want to get done.
Proves nothing, just idle speculation, but would fit the evidence.
I have come to agree with the position that Absalom laid out just above. When I first looked at the Draft Reg. card, the only signature I trusted to be Cater's was the one at the bottom. The more I look at it, the more it seems he might have filled out all the front side of the card. That doesn't mean I am blind to some odd variety in letter forms on Side 1, but I think they may not be significant enough to let us conclude two different people worked on that side.
I still haven't figured out whether the closest relative -- Mrs. W.B. Petrick of Dover, OK -- is a sister, remarried mother, or sister-in-law. Given the age of his older son, Cater would have been married and a father by the time he bought the gun in Goldfield.
I still haven't figured out whether the closest relative -- Mrs. W.B. Petrick of Dover, OK -- is a sister, remarried mother, or sister-in-law. Given the age of his older son, Cater would have been married and a father by the time he bought the gun in Goldfield.
