Absalom
SWCA Member, Absent Comrade
I letter all the guns in my collection, not to play the "shipped to Wyatt Earp" lottery, but for historical background. For the first time, a letter I received today helped me confirm a connection to a, if not famous, at least prominent and historically significant person.
I beg your patience for a little history lecture.
Franklin W. Olin, 1860 – 1951, got started in the explosives business in 1892 and formed the Western Cartridge Co., headquartered in East Alton, IL., in 1898. He grew his business significantly making ammunition for the government during WW 1, and bought the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. in 1931, creating Winchester-Western in 1935. With his three sons, he ran one of the, if not the largest civilian ammo manufacturer of WW 2, reorganized since 1944 as Olin Industries, and also made military guns on government contracts. Later expansions added chemicals; the Olin Corporation is still active today.
His youngest son, Spencer T. Olin, 1900 – 1995, besides working as a company executive, was active in the Republican Party in the 1950s/60s and served as national finance chair and treasurer to the RNC.
Last year, two S&W revolvers were for sale which supposedly came from the estate of Spencer Olin and which the seller claimed to have acquired from the nephew of Olin's accountant. One, a very nice LNIB Model 34 Kit gun, which I had no interest in, was actually supported by documentation, an original S&W packing slip from 1963 showing billing to the Olin Corp. and shipping to Spencer Olin's home address. The other one was the Regulation Police .38 pictured below. Same story, but no papers. So while the seller added $1000 to the asking price of the kit gun because of the historical provenance (no idea whether he found a buyer), he could tell me the story, but couldn't sell me the story, and I acquired the RP for $595, not a steal, but a decent mid-range price for a well-preserved specimen from the 1917 pre-war batch, which is what I'd been after.
In sending for the letter, I didn't have high hopes. As long as it wasn't M. W. Robinson, a.k.a. "the Black Hole", I would have been satisfied. So I was very pleasantly surprised when the letter slam-dunked the Olin connection. The gun was actually delivered in 1917 directly to the Western Cartridge Co., at its corporate headquarters in East Alton, without a detour through a distributor.
Now of course I can't say for what purpose it was ordered. Unfortunately, S&W factory letters, unlike Colt letters, do not include the number of guns in the shipment. That piece of information would be decisive here: A whole batch of guns, and it likely was a legitimate company purpose; this being the fall of 1917, and a war-essential business in the upper Mid-west, an area full of Germans, one would not be surprised if plant security forces and company detectives were reinforced out of concern about saboteurs, given the general anti-German hysteria. On the other hand, if it was just one gun ordered and shipped, then someone got themselves a private gun on the company account, most likely Frank Olin himself, since his son's estate ended up with the gun, just like Spencer Olin seems to have done with the kit gun 50 years later.
Anyway, that's the story. I think it's pretty neat.
I beg your patience for a little history lecture.
Franklin W. Olin, 1860 – 1951, got started in the explosives business in 1892 and formed the Western Cartridge Co., headquartered in East Alton, IL., in 1898. He grew his business significantly making ammunition for the government during WW 1, and bought the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. in 1931, creating Winchester-Western in 1935. With his three sons, he ran one of the, if not the largest civilian ammo manufacturer of WW 2, reorganized since 1944 as Olin Industries, and also made military guns on government contracts. Later expansions added chemicals; the Olin Corporation is still active today.
His youngest son, Spencer T. Olin, 1900 – 1995, besides working as a company executive, was active in the Republican Party in the 1950s/60s and served as national finance chair and treasurer to the RNC.
Last year, two S&W revolvers were for sale which supposedly came from the estate of Spencer Olin and which the seller claimed to have acquired from the nephew of Olin's accountant. One, a very nice LNIB Model 34 Kit gun, which I had no interest in, was actually supported by documentation, an original S&W packing slip from 1963 showing billing to the Olin Corp. and shipping to Spencer Olin's home address. The other one was the Regulation Police .38 pictured below. Same story, but no papers. So while the seller added $1000 to the asking price of the kit gun because of the historical provenance (no idea whether he found a buyer), he could tell me the story, but couldn't sell me the story, and I acquired the RP for $595, not a steal, but a decent mid-range price for a well-preserved specimen from the 1917 pre-war batch, which is what I'd been after.
In sending for the letter, I didn't have high hopes. As long as it wasn't M. W. Robinson, a.k.a. "the Black Hole", I would have been satisfied. So I was very pleasantly surprised when the letter slam-dunked the Olin connection. The gun was actually delivered in 1917 directly to the Western Cartridge Co., at its corporate headquarters in East Alton, without a detour through a distributor.
Now of course I can't say for what purpose it was ordered. Unfortunately, S&W factory letters, unlike Colt letters, do not include the number of guns in the shipment. That piece of information would be decisive here: A whole batch of guns, and it likely was a legitimate company purpose; this being the fall of 1917, and a war-essential business in the upper Mid-west, an area full of Germans, one would not be surprised if plant security forces and company detectives were reinforced out of concern about saboteurs, given the general anti-German hysteria. On the other hand, if it was just one gun ordered and shipped, then someone got themselves a private gun on the company account, most likely Frank Olin himself, since his son's estate ended up with the gun, just like Spencer Olin seems to have done with the kit gun 50 years later.
Anyway, that's the story. I think it's pretty neat.
