10
SEWING KIT "SCARE" PIHTOL SEWING KIT PISTOL. (Open) This next piece is the only "gun" in my collection which I intentionally will point at anyone, unless I'm going to shoot them. I have given this talk 146 times in the past eight years, and the reaction is always the same, as I deliberately point the piece at the audience, tell them that something is going to happen when I pull the trigger; that it won't hurt them , . when I perform this action, there are always several who will involun- tarily flinch, or blink, when I do this. Such has happened here. You see, when I pulled back on the hammer, the "pistol" breaks at the back of the cylinder, exposing a mirror, scissors which actually work, a needle well, two spools of thread, a crochet hook, all in the cylinder; in the butt is a vial for perfume or smelling salts: the front of the chambers is a pincushion; and the shell extractor is in reality a pencil. Next on the 'LGuns-Which-Ain't" list is this Frenchpercussion alarm clook-pistol. You set the alarm hand to the time you wish to wakeup, turn the clock around, cock the hammer, place a percussion cap on the nipple, and go to sleep. The clock rings for 15 seconds, then releases the hammer. It is easy to imagine a man, not wanting to wake up the household, leaping out of bed at the first ring of the alarm, and trying to shut the damned thing off before it pops the cap. I call this the ideal clock for the person who wants to "wake up with a bangl" Out of the 300-odd pieces in my collection, I have two favorites . . . . my R. W. Andrews, and this hunk of tin. It is a flyswatter pistol. Patented in 1918, thousands were made and sold at 5$ apiece, but only three are known to be left in existence. The thing actually works! What you have to do is to sneakup onthe lit fly, aim at 7 o'clock, and pull the trigger. Of course, it takes an aver- age of 17 shots to bag your quarry, but it does work. I don't know whether or not it is the skill of the hunter, or if the fly just gives up, being so darned tired from trying to escape this presistent fool! Incidentaly, this piece has amaximumrange of 5 inches from the muzzle, and a 300 degree trajectory, but think of the ammunition you save! The final piece which I will show you is this spirometer-pistol. As the doctors in the audience FLY SWATTER PI8TO1, FROM TEXAS know, a spirometer is a device used to measure the breathing capacity of the lungs in order to de- tect certain respiratory ailments, such as emphy- sema. Not this one, however. It was designed as a practical joke. Before using this 'Lwierdo," powder was placed in a chamber, a -22 blank was placed in the firing end to the rear, and the side was closed. If you look at the dial in front, you can see a hole. Watch what happens if this were to be used at some long-forgotten medical convention by a young know-it-all intern. In observance of the safety rules of the Association, I have not loaded it with a blank, but it doesn't take too much imagination to hear a loud report when I blow into the mouthpiece. As you can see, the talc is blown right into the face of the victim, much to the laughter of his fellow colleagues. I am deeply indebted to Harmon Leonard for parting with this piece. It is invaluable, and a real "show stopper" whenever I demonstrate it.

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Page 1: SEWING KIT SCARE PIHTOL SEWING KIT PISTOL.americansocietyofarmscollectors.hostguardian.com/wp...a 5mm pinfire French combination cane, dirk, and six-shot revolver, and the same combination

SEWING KIT "SCARE" PIHTOL SEWING KIT PISTOL. (Open)

This next piece is the only "gun" in my collection which I intentionally will point at anyone, unless I'm going to shoot them. I have given this talk 146 times in the past eight years, and the reaction is always the same, as I deliberately point the piece at the audience, tell them that something is going to happen when I pull the trigger; that it won't hurt them , . when I perform this action, there are always several who will involun- tarily flinch, or blink, when I do this. Such has happened here. You see, when I pulled back on the hammer, the "pistol" breaks at the back of the cylinder, exposing a mirror, scissors which actually work, a needle well, two spools of thread, a crochet hook, all in the cylinder; in the butt is a vial for perfume or smelling salts: the front of the chambers i s a pincushion; and the shell extractor i s in reality a pencil.

Next on the 'LGuns-Which-Ain't" list i s this Frenchpercussion alarm clook-pistol. You set the alarm hand to the time you wish to wakeup, turn the clock around, cock the hammer, place a percussion cap on the nipple, and go to sleep. The clock rings for 15 seconds, then releases the hammer. It i s easy to imagine a man, not wanting to wake up the household, leaping out of bed at the first ring of the alarm, and trying to shut the damned thing off before it pops the cap. I call this the ideal clock for the person who wants to "wake up with a bangl"

Out of the 300-odd pieces in my collection, I have two favorites . . . . my R. W. Andrews, and this hunk of tin. It i s a flyswatter pistol. Patented in 1918, thousands were made and sold at 5$ apiece, but only three are known to be left in existence. The thing actually works! What you have to do is to sneakup onthe lit fly, aim at 7 o'clock, and pull the trigger. Of course, it takes an aver- age of 1 7 shots to bag your quarry, but it does work. I don't know whether or not it i s the skill of the hunter, or if the fly just gives up, being so darned tired from trying to escape this presistent fool! Incidentaly, this piece has amaximumrange of 5 inches from the muzzle, and a 300 degree trajectory, but think of the ammunition you save!

The final piece which I will show you is this spirometer-pistol. As the doctors in the audience

FLY SWATTER PI8TO1, FROM TEXAS know, a spirometer i s a device used to measure the breathing capacity of the lungs in order to de- tect certain respiratory ailments, such as emphy- sema. Not this one, however. It was designed as a practical joke. Before using this 'Lwierdo," powder was placed in a chamber, a -22 blank was placed in the firing end to the rear, and the side was closed. If you look at the dial in front, you can see a hole. Watch what happens if this were to be used at some long-forgotten medical convention by a young know-it-all intern. In observance of the safety rules of the Association, I have not loaded it with a blank, but it doesn't take too much imagination to hear a loud report when I blow into the mouthpiece. As you can see, the talc i s blown right into the face of the victim, much to the laughter of his fellow colleagues. I am deeply indebted to Harmon Leonard for parting with this piece. It i s invaluable, and a real "show stopper" whenever I demonstrate it.

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Now let's return to the United Slates and see what they were coming up with in this line. I have here four dagger-derringers, made by Frank Wesson, of whom little is known about. In my research on these pistols, I found that the .32 rimfire was the first he made incorporating the dagger, then the .41 rimfire, the 38 rimfire, and a few in .22 rimfire, Now, the Frank Wesson over/under derringer in itself is not rare, but the dagger version is rather hard to find, especially in the .32, -38, and .22 calibers. As all of you are aware, people are faking practically everything that will bring a fast buck, and they haven't left poor F. Wesson alone. What they a re doing is to take a $50 Wesson, cutting a groove in the middle 6Lbarrel,'' making a dagger and then selling it for $200 and up. This is quiteprevalent, I have found, in the tiny .22 "Vest Pocket" model. Please be careful when you buy one of these. The quickest way to spot a fake of this nature i s to take the blade out and examine the groove. It should be arrow-straight. I have seen many examples in which the faker wps quite careless, cutting a crooked groove. Another way is by the serial number. I am still researching this, but feel I do have the majority of the dagger-derringer serial numbers inall but the most common, the .41 rimfire. If any of you have ahy information at all on Frank Wesson, please let me know, as I intend to publish his story at some future date.

In the early 1920's, pocket knife-pistols of .22 caliber were quite popular, and many were sold through the mails until Federal restrictions stopped this traffic. The most popular of these was the American Arms Co. "Huntsman," and the smaller "Defender," which you see here, and are prevalent at practically every gun show in the country. They are not rare, but this one is unique. It is a pilot model, extremely well made, of a "Casen hife-pistol. The barrel is rifled, andthepiece may be fired with the blade either open or closed. The reason this particular piece did not go into production was that the production cost was too great . . $27 . . . to com- pete with the cheaper and inferior Ameri- can Arms Co. knife-pistols.

Today you have seen a sword-cane; I I

you have seen a knife-cane; but I feel the epitome in cane-weapans is found in these two . . . a 5mm pinfire French combination cane, dirk, and six-shot revolver, and the same combination in a .22 rimfire, made in Germany. The ' 7

pinfire is hard to come by, as Frank 4

Horner will attest, but the German ver- sion is almost impossible to find. I feel fortunate in having both versions in my 22 CAL. RF GABE KNIFE PISTOL

collection. INVENTOR'S MODEL

There are a m u 1 t i t u d e of other ' ' o d d i t y ' ' variations which I could tell you about, but the t i m e prevents me from mentioning but a few, which are: the Rook scarer. The Rook is the English version of our Blackbird, and does countless damage to crops. Some enterprising Englishman car& up with this idea of a mechanical scarecrow which used 16 gauge pinfire blanks to keep the birds away. The device uses a metronome system to time the firing of the blanks, and by using various trigger arms, and by varylng the weight on the pendulum itself, the shots may be fired at intervals from five minutes apart to three hours. There have been more modern improvements in this idea, shown byU. S. patent #1,056,602, utilizing a windmill and a 12-gauge M97 Winchester shotgun; and most recently, a .30 caliber M1 carbine with a 60-round homemade magazine using a metronome firing system in a cherry orchard in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, practically in my own back yard!

As my speech comes to a close, I'd like to end with a particularly fascinating category of "weapons curl- 0~38," namely, "Guns-Which-Ain't," a term which I've given to those items which are either made to look like real guns or look like something else, utilizing gun mechanisms, which do not kill humans; are not toys, but serve a definite purpose, as you shall aee.

First in this category are the "Scare Pistols.'' In the late 18809s, there occurred in Paris a wave of mug- gings and assaults on thefairer sex. Womenwere urged to carry pistols with them to discourage these actions, but some of these ladies could not stomach the shooting of another person. Observing this, some French and Belgian armsmakers came up with the idea of making a pistol which could fire, but would "scare the yell" out of some mugger. I show you this common Le Faucheux revolver, to contrast with the two following examples of scare guns, Here is one that is made of brass, gold-plated, and beautifully enameled. As you can see, i t i s an exact copy of the real revolver, but with one main exception . . . the lanyard ring is the only thing that works, or moves. Even the trigger is screwed on.

Page 3: SEWING KIT SCARE PIHTOL SEWING KIT PISTOL.americansocietyofarmscollectors.hostguardian.com/wp...a 5mm pinfire French combination cane, dirk, and six-shot revolver, and the same combination

YEWING KIT "SCARE" PISTOL SEWING KIT PISTOL. (Open)

This next piece is the only "gun" in my collection which I intentionally wgll point at anyone, unless I'm going to shoot them. I have given this talk 146 times in the past eight years, and the reaction is always the same, as I deliberately point the piece at the audience, tell them that something is going to happen when I pull the trigger; that it won't hurt them . . when I perform this action, there are always several who will involun- tarily flinch, or blink, when I do this. Such has happened here. You see, when I pulled back on the hammer, the "pistol" breaks at the back of the cylinder, exposing a mirror, scissors which actually work, a needle well, two spools of thread, a crochet hook, all in the cylinder: in the butt is a vial for perfume or smelling salts; the front of the chambers i s a pincushion; and the shell extractor i s in reality a pencil.

Next on the "Guns-Which-Ain't" list i s this Frenchpercussion alarm clook-pistol. You set the alarm hand to the time you wish to wakeup, turn the clock around, cock the hammer, place a percussion cap on the nipple, and go to sleep. The clock rings for 15 seconds, then releases the hammer. It i s easy to imagine a man, not wanting to wake up the household, leaping out of bed at the first ring of the alarm, and trying to shut the damned thing off before it pops the cap. I call this the ideal clock for the person who wants to "wake up with a bangl"

Out of the 300-odd pieces in my collection, I have two favorites . . . . my R. W. Andrews, and this hunk of tin. It is a flyswatter pistol. Patented in 1918, thousands were made and sold at 5C apiece, but only three are known to be left in existence. The thing actually works ! What you have to do is to sneakup onthe lit fly, aim at 7 o'clock, and pull the trigger, Of course, it takes an aver- age of 17 shots to bag your quarry, but it does work. I don't know whether or not it i s the skill of the hunter, or if the fly just gives up, being so darned tired from trying to escape this presistent fool! Incidentaly, this piece has a maximum range of 5 inches from the muzzle, and a 300 degree trajectory, but think of the ammunition you &el

The final piece which I will show you is this spirometer-pistol. As the doctors in the audience know, a spirometer i s a device used to measure

n Y SWATTER PISTOL FROM TEXAY

the breathing capacity of the lungs in order to de- tect certain respiratory ailments, such as emphy- sema. Not this one, however. It was designed as a practical joke. Before using this "wierdo," powder was placed in a chamber, a .22 blank was placed in the firing-end to the rear, and the side was closed. If you look at the dial in front, you can see a hole. Watch what happens if this were to be used at some long-forgotten medical convention by a young know-it-all intern. In observance of the safety rules of the Association, I have not loaded it with a blank, but it doesn't take too much imagination to hear a loud report when I blow into the mouthpiece. As you can see, the talc i s blown right into the face of, the victim, much to the laughter of his fellow colleagues. I am deeply indebted to Harmon Leonard for parting with this piece. It i s invaluable, and a real "show stopper" whenever I demonstrate it.

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You know, I've had a lot of fun giving this speech, and I hope you have enjoyed it half as much, but I will now close on a serious note, every bit of which I say, I mean from the bottom of my heart. The great majority of the weapons I've displayed here wereboughtor traded from you, my fellow members. I say this proudly, for in this world of fakes of all sorts, it i s truly inspiring to know that such an austute group of men exists, few as we are, who will not knowingly sell a fake, and back up their sale or trade with an unwritten guarantee as to its authenticity. This is one of the many advantages of having the privilege of being a member of the Ameri- can Society of Arms Collectors. I pray that we shall continue to fight to maintain this, the highest of all standards of membership.

VARIOUS SWORD PISTOLS

FLINTLOCK & CARTRIDGE CANES PEPPERBOXES MIT STICKERS. YET

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EVERYBODY HAD FUN-

HOST "SMILIN" CARL C. HAYES IS SELLING DENVER TO FRANK RUSSELL

BOB ERNEST OF PORT CLINTON OHIO. WELCOME BACK BOB. TALKINU TO J A ~ K PR~LLIPS OF

UNIONDALE, L.I., N. YJ

DENVER B. CORNETT. JR AND CLEMONS CALD- WELL BOTH FFIOM THE STATE OF FINE HORSES.

WOMEN. ETC.

GINGER FROST, "WHAT-A-MAN" SOHELLE AND SWEET NELL SORELLE

AWARD WlNNEn FROST WITH AN ALL TIME WIN- NER ELSIE JACKWN AND "LITTLE OLE" DOC

IIENDNCKS

THE WN MASS.

RAKBEW YANKEES

AND MRS. ERNEST WALEN, ALONG WAY FROM HOME

A THORN BETWEEN TWO ROSES, GINGER FROST, DON AND MADALENE BARBER O F LONGMEAWW. fU3D JACKSON AND KIT BEDFORD MASS. CWIL WAR BUFFB.

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BOYS & GALS

OUR IfARD-WORKING RE'I'IREI) SECRETARY TOM lIOI.'r AND HIS FINE GAL ALJCE.

ANDY AND EDITH McCROSKIE O F DENVER CO- HOSTS WlTH THE CARL HAYES. NICE JOB FOLKS.

THANKS,

WHO SAIL! WIIAT TO WHOM? THE JOLLY CHUCK BNCKERS. THEN: AKE UAYS LIKE THAT.

OXA AND PAUL FULKY O F WOLFE CITY, TEXAS. LOOK LIKE NEWLYWEDS DON'T THEY. WELL.

THEY AIN'T.

TICKIE HENDHTCKS AND NORM BLANK ENJOY 'TIIE COCKTAIL HOUH.

CLAY AND KIT BEDFORD FROM OAKLAND AND PHOENIX. "MIICHA OHANUE THON"

'THAT NICE COUPLE "'1'1IE FHANK R. HORNEM" THAT ' G A L NELL" SORELLE AND HER BOY FRIEND FRANKIE

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PROBING THE QUESTIONABLE

by Samuel E . Smith

in Nic ARMS

SAMUEL E. SMITH

~k Harrison's old GUN COLLECTOR magazine. Later book, we got the full story, but I like to think that my

On the American Society program, the Sunday morning speaker haa several prob- lems: the late Saturday night before, men in in the audience who are anxious to leave. others who want to start packing so they can leave, and still othere who want to have a final look at the fine displays or a final talk with another member. Since Wa is break- away day as we eay in showbiz, I intend to be somewhat brief.

The title of this talk is "Probing the Questionable'' and I've done a bit of this prob- ing research on American firearms in the paet. To cite an instance, and also to get us to thinking along those lines, I will briefly mention a concern of mine a long time ago with those little .31 caliber percussion re- volvers stamped "LONDON PISTOL CO." and also marked "PATENTED Dec. 27, 1859." During thoee years that I'd been cob lecting, dealers and collectors alike had con~lidered them as having been made by the London Pistol Company in England that took over from Sam Colt after his plant ceaeed production there in 1857. But the absence of proof marks and that patent date stamping made me wonder. I identified the patent and got a copy of it from the U. S. Patent Office, began recording serial numbers and finally wound up writing a little article in Dec. 1946

*, in Wally Nutter's excellent MANHATTAN FIFLE- little probing started the ball rolling.

Thie morning, in "Probing the Questionable," I am going to talk about pepperboxes-a certain pepperbox- the Darling. Asmany of us are aware, there are two main breeds of the Darling pepperbox-the 1st Model Darling that has the iron frame and iron barrels and is marked "B. & B.M. Darling Patent" and a number, auch as: 4, 6, 11, 113, 115, all of which I have noted.

And then there are the eo-called Darling brass percussion pepper boxes with the dis- tinctive brase frame, barrels and trigger guard. These come in a varietyof shots, 3, 4, and 6 there are also single ehot and double barrel pistole whose characteristics in work- manship of manufacture make it certain they have the eame origin as the pepperboxes. Marldngs on all of these, pepperboxes and pistols alike, consist of various groups of initiale such as: J. ENGh, AIS, ACS, IEH. Unfortunately these brass barrel and frame pepperboxes and pistols were not serial numbered - and you know how I like pieces to be serial numbered. However, I would eatirnate I have seen perhaps 85 of all sizes of these brase pepperboxes and there might be nearly that many more ktckingaroundthat I haven't seen nor heard of. It gives you an A m ~ ~ m DARLMO

idea of the number in eldstence today incomparison with but 7 of iron pepperboeee marked Darling. It is doubt- ful if productionof the latter went muchover one hundred and it can accurately be classed as the most desirable of all American pepperboxes.

Except for a brief mention by Charles W. Sawyer in a magazine article that appeared in the Oct. 1926 iesue of ANTIQUES, and thus I suspect was not widely read by gun collectors, nothing was written about the Darling Pepperbox until an article by a young author appeared in January 1942 issue of the old GUN REPORT maga- zine. edited by Ruse Patterson in Akron, Ohio. Since I ahall refer to it again, and the errore it contains, I might as well admit to being the author. The brass pepperboxes were illustrated and described, but at that

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time there was no howledge of the whereaboutsof one of the iron frame pepperboxes marked Darling, so they were unfortunately omrnitted from illustration and description. While this little gun magazine didn't receive wide circulation, it obviously reached a sufficient number of collectors, dealers and authors so the findings of the article were read and preached as the gospel. Even without the additional information in the article, gun lists and catalogs had for years listedthesebrass pepperboxes as being made by the Darling Brothers in Woon- socket, Rhode Island.

Back in December of 1947 I receivedaletter from Bill Locke mentioning that he had juat acquired a double barrel Darling pin-fire pistol. Now this caused me some thought, I'd never heard of a Darling pin-fire before; in fact, I wasn't juat' sure when I'd ever seen an American-made pin-fire of any klnd. I later saw the piece when Bill kindly brought it to one of the Ohio Gun Collectors Association meetings to show me-and the thought came to me that i t just didn't look American1 I had always associated pin-fires with foreign origin.

Since I had at that time a number of unmarked brass pepperboxes and pistols of the so-called Darling make in my collection, I took the whole lot with me to the United States Forest Products Lab in Madison, Wisconsin and had the wood stocks analyzed. Not a one was stocked in American wood, all were European maple or other wood grown in northern ~ & ~ e . This caused some thinking on my part-and remember gentle- men it was I who had written that illuminating article on the Darling Pepperbox.

After a couple of years with this Darling question in the back of my mind, I learned of Tage Lasson of

",,,A, ",--\,,*>+ , , ,,,. , ,,", --. -, ---- , , , , , , I, I- . I< , j , Copenhagen, Denmark. Mr. Lagson was a fine gentle-

, . , , , . A , ,, , , man and a gun collector who could correspond in English, and incidentally he was quite a resistence fighter during the War. Mr. Lasson wrote me that the Swedish arms cdllectors maintain that the brase

-called Darling pepperboxes were all made in Swe- n. Mr. Lasson passed away, but I had the same story

later by Dr. Arne Hoff of Kobenhaven,

Through the courtesy of our fellow member, Jack Dunlap, author of that excellent book "AMERICAN, BRITISH & C 0 N T IN E N T A L PEPPERBOX FIRE- ARMS,!' I am going to quote parts of an article by Mr, Eric Ashede, aprominent Swedish arms collector, entitled: "Brass Weapons of Amaland (Smoland) ":

Some common weapons in firearms collections are revolvers made of brass, sometimes called

E (county constable) revolvers. The origin is , on the other hand, unknown to most people. In the weapone-literature, one encounters them rarely . . . . . one part of the American authors attri- butes them & Americans. Those that are signed ''J. ENGh" are ascribed to one J. Englehart

PATENT DRAWINGS FOR DARLING IRON PISTOL of Nazareth, Pa. Now this just isn't so. The

photo ~ t e s y MilwUU!-W PUHM Mueeum master gunsmith ie named Johan Engholm of. Hestra, Odestugu (a town in the Swedish pro-

vince of Smaland). That is s~methingIhaveknown for a long time. In literature, I first met it in Stockel, "Evaluation of Hand Firearms Part I" which clearly states ''J. Engholm, Odestugu, approx. 1865."

(There continues a description of several chandeliers and candlesticke of brass, all marked a s made or produced by J. Engholm at Hestra from 1868 to 1872, and states the marking is "J. ENGh," just as one sees on so many pistols and revolvers")

Anders Gustafsson was a servant at Johan Engholm's and in addition to the usual servant's tasks, he was helpful with the weapon's production. He married a daughter of the house in 1869, Johanna, and continued, even while he cultivated his ownplotof ground, to work on the pistols and revolvers which he now signed himself "AGS."

But back ta Johan Engholm. He was born in 1820 and died in in 1918. He probably began production during the 1840's. The grandson, Oscar Engholm, declares that in the home of the grandparents there was a pistol and a gun both with flintlocks and fabricated by the grandfather . . . . the signature AIS is that of Anders Johannesson of Rrnenas, in Malmbacks Parish, who began his career as a gunsmith at Engholm's and so gradmlly started his own production of pistols and revolvers and also other things like mortars and candlesticks, which he signed L'AIS's . . . . The weapons which are found in the USA have, with all likelihood, f o 11 o we d the S w e d e.s \who emigrated to that large land in the West. They traveled during the period 1850-1914 with a total of about a million people, of which 80,000 were Smalanders with un- hown destination. Many brought along pocket weapons they best knew, or were least expensive. Here are the signatures I have met-more certainly exist:

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J. ENGH - Johna Engholm, Odeatugu, 1820-1918. Produced 1840-1904. (that late a date is doubtful) IE H - probably the earliest of the same shop. AGS - Anders Gustafsaon, Westugu, 1835-1924. Production 1896 to about 1900. AIS - Andres Johannesson, Romenas, Malmbacks Parish. 1840-1914. Production to about 1895.

or earlier.

I believe now that we have completely established that these brass pepperboxes, unmarked except for the maker's initials, were all made in Sweden and brought to this country by the emigrants. To further confirm thie, both Jack Dunlap and Ihowofnearly a dozen instances where we could trace back the original ownership of one of these brass pepperboxes to a Swedish emi- grant who brought it with him to this country. Of course the seven known iron frame and iron barrel percussion pepperboxes marked E . & B.M. DARLING (and includingthe one marked "W. GLAZE COLUMBIA, S. C." which was written up in Nov. 1955 American Rifleman) are the only remaining evidence of the Dar- ling manufacture.

The first written hint that these brass pepperboxes were NOT American made appeared in Jim Serven's "Colleoting of Guns", in Frank Horner's chapter on pepperboxes. In recent yeare I had mentioned to some friends about my suspicions of the Swedish origin of the brasa pepperboxes. Shortly prior to Jim's book being published, Henry Stewart was visiting Jim and the subject came up and Jim wrote me wanting to know what about it? I was a bit reluctant to disclose everything at that time because I had the idea of an article on "The Swedish Darling'' in mind, but I did feel that Frank Homer's pepperbox chapter shouldnotcontain an error that I could prevent. So Jim and I stuck this sentence in Frank's chapter withouthis permission: "Doubt has been expressed as to whether these types were actually made by the Darling Brothers. Research on this subject i s being carried out as this book i s being written and it may result In an interesting story for pepperbox collectors in the future."

However, perhaps the most interesting part i s yet to come: How did the Darling name tag become attached to those brass Swedish pepperboxes? Gentlemen, I went through 87 of those old auction house catalogs of American arms auctions from 1906 on, and also the A. E. Brooks catalog of 1899. I poured through those now yellowed and crackling old Bannerman Catalogs from shortly after 1900 up into the 1920's. Nothing on the identification of those brass barreled pepperboxes appeared until: the Merwin Sales Co. sale of the Jacob Steiner collection in N.Y. Oct. 20, 1914, item324, illustrated, describes a "6 shot brass barrel & frame perc. pepperbox stamped AIS." Described a s '$made in Pennsylvania. Extremely rare and found in few collections."

The next came the Scott & O'Shaughnessy, New York sale of the John Meeks collection on Oct, 24, 1916, item 613, offered and correctly identified an iron frame and iron barrel first model Darling. However, the Scott & O'Shaughnessy sale of Feb. 5, 1919, item 178, illustrated on its Frontispiece the following: "Darling percweion pepperbox, 4 shot. This was made by Benjamin M. Darling of Woonsocket, R. I. who died about 25 years ago and claimed that he was the maker of the first American .revolver. The cataloger has a cut and advertisement of this revolver which reads: Darling Patent Rotary Pistol, made & sold wholesale and retail by B. & B.M. Darling Woonsocket, R. I. The rarest and most interesting of early American pieces."

Now who was that cataloger? I quote from a letter in my files that identifies him. It reads: "Williamsburg, Virginia, March 30, 1942. Paragraph 4 states: inone of my scrap books is an advertising circular showing the Darling Pepperbox and I have been o f f e r e d $10.00 for this circular many a time. Signed: Stephen Van Rensselaer. ''

6 SHOT DARLING WITH AGENT'S NAME "W. GLAZE COLUMBIA. S. C." NOTE LONG BARREL SECTION

Page 10: SEWING KIT SCARE PIHTOL SEWING KIT PISTOL.americansocietyofarmscollectors.hostguardian.com/wp...a 5mm pinfire French combination cane, dirk, and six-shot revolver, and the same combination

TWO SPECIMENS OF THE 6 SHOT IRON DARLING PEPPERBOX, SERIALS (top) 113, (bot) ll.

. "SINGLE SHOT DARLING PISTOL, SAM SMITH COLLECT

To save space, I'll consolidate my talk at Denver and say that I mentioned seven Scott & 0 'Shaughness y gnd Walpole Auction House catalogs from 1919 thru 1924, all of which give nearly identical identification of these brass pepperboxes as being made by the Darling Brothers and being very rare and very valuable. There was also the mention that the cataloger (whom we thus identify as Mr. Van Rensselaer) had this rare & original Darling advertisement.

Thus we can see how the SwedishDarling myth was established. I knew Mr. Van Rens- selaer quite well and had met him onnumer- ous occasions in Willlamsburg, Virginia and Peterborough, New Hampshire and bought a fair number of guns from him before he died in 1945. He was one of the old time dealer-collectors with a great deal of know- ledge and willing to give his opinion-which, as in the case of the Swedish Darling, was sometimes In error. I hope all of you have had as much enjoyment in learning the true iden- tity of the Swedish Darling and how her buildup was accomplished as I had in running it down.

ION"

(Top to Boll FOUR SIX & TWO BARFEL BRA95. SIX M RREL IRON

Side View of Darling Three-Shot Pistol Insert Shbws Barrel Construction