**LETTER ARRIVED**A S&W with a mystery attached. Need help deciphering....

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I just won this in an online auction. All numbers ,including the stocks, match (#85700). It is a candidate for a letter as the original owner personalized it as shown in the pic of the stock panel. I can't quite get the name though. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Goldfield Nevada was a boom town when....you guessed it..... gold was struck there circa 1902. I'm guessing this one was carried by a miner or maybe a lawman. Its population peaked at 30,000 until a fire destroyed the town. Currently, there are about 200 residents.

Virgil Earp was the city marshal for about 6 months in 1905 until he caught pneumonia and died there. Wyatt lived there also.

Goldfield - Nevada Ghost Town

Goldfield Historical Society - Goldfield Nevada - The History of
Goldfield
 

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.44Special said:
I just won this in an online auction. All numbers ,including the stocks, match (#85700). It is a candidate for a letter as the original owner personalized it as shown in the pic of the stock panel. I can't quite get the name though. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Goldfield Nevada was a boom town when....you guessed it..... gold was struck there circa 1902. I'm guessing this one was carried by a miner or maybe a lawman. Its population peaked at 30,000 until a fire destroyed the town. Currently, there are about 200 residents.

Virgil Earp was the city marshal for about 6 months in 1905 until he caught pneumonia and died there. Wyatt lived there also.

Goldfield - Nevada Ghost Town

Goldfield Historical Society - Goldfield Nevada - The History of
Goldfield
Click to expand...

That gun most likely dates to around Oct 1906.
 
Goldfield is a neat place to visit as is the abandoned gold mining town of Bodie in CA

I think the first name is Geo for George.
 
Very nice revolver and a neat story. I was looking at the name and wonder if it's a last name no first, just a one word last name. I was thinking maybe German or Dutch. I could be totally wrong but a possibility to research. If you go there a trip to the local cemetery could shed some light on the subject. Stones headstones last better than paper records especially in a town that burned down.
 
I list 8573x as shipping in 1/06. Anyway, it seems fairly certain 85700 shipped sometime in 1906, likely earlier 1906 if it made to Goldfield in time for the original owner to write the 1906 date. My guess on the name would be no better than anyone else's. I played around with various contrast and curve adjustments using Photoshop and still couldn't make out the last name clearly enough to be sure.
 
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Is it possible that the first letter after the Geo is a middle initial or first letter of the last name? Looks like it could be an H to me.
*edit Duh. I see where someone else already mentioned the H.
 
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^^^ What I was thinking as well. The part folks think is "ff" might be a middle initial as it does not sit inline with the first 3 letters
 
Wiregrassguy said:
.... I did a run on the 1910 census and there are no Geoff's.
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The problem with these mining camps for an issue like this was the highly transient nature of the population. Unless this gun just happened to be owned by one of the "pillars of the town", like a merchant or owner of a larger mining company, many who were residing in Goldfield in 1906 were no longer there by 1910.

Goldfield follows the pattern. It reached the peak of its boom and its peak population of over 20,000 in just the year we're interested in, 1906, and was back down below 5000 by 1910.

So if we want to catch this guy (I can't do any better than folks here have already done on the name), documents like maybe old newspapers from 1906/07 would likely be the best bet.
 
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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.
 
Looks to me like "Geo H. Dra...." or maybe "maybe Geo H. Da...."

Geo H. Drain possibly
or
Geo H. Dates?

Just a wag.... :)
 

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SFIDEC said:
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.
Click to expand...

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
 
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.
 

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Azav8or said:
I think DCWilson has this figured out. The lettering and style from his attacment are just about dead on.
Click to expand...

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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