Featured French Bayonet & Some Kind of Gun

Where did you find it? Maybe I can do something.

 

I'll see if I can find the link again

 

@afantiques here is the link http://smith-wessonforum.com/lounge/106166-old-flintlock-pistol.html

 

So you'rs is a fake ?....& the one I found without the lanyard ring may be also....
well shiver me timbers..

 

I found a Sears Roebuck database but you need an ancestry.com subscription to access details. It does seem the gun was supposed to be fireable, with black powder of course.

It does seem to be that one, which answers the questions I had about your gun in my original reply. It would seem to consign the notches on the trigger guard to the realm of fantasy.

 

I'd say an out of period copy rather than a fake. Modern display pieces are not fireable, but looking at the prices of much more complicated but entirely functional H&R revolvers compared with the flinter, it does seem a price for a simple but robust fireable weapon.

 

Ask and ye shall receive. Spring 1901 Sears Catalogue.

They claim to have found "a small lot" thanks to a European buyer, implying they are the real deal.

 

Wow, thank-you bakers, you are amazing!

 

That is interesting reading. Seems like the real thing. I remember the Hudson's Bay in Vancouver had an 'antique' department, brought in items from estates that they sold, so I can see Sears buying some 'antique' items from Europe to sell.

 

The idiot copywriter uses revolver as a synonym for pistol, but I suspect that the items were made not far from the time of the ad. 16th C is of course quite daft, the style is early 19th C, when percussion was just coming in but flints were cheaper. The 'Bright polished barrel' is an anomaly, an original period arm would always have a blued barrel, as a way to deter rust.

Still, an interesting subject. Thanks for the readable version of the ad, bakersgma

I am wondering if they were 'new old stock', a batch of cheap flinters that simply got left unsold as everyone went percussion. If you cared if your gun was going to fire, percussion caps were the way to go.

 

Glad I could help. If ever anyone needs something on Ancestry, I'm your girl.

But I forgot to insert this after the summary sentence.

 

Maybe on this gun.....maybe not.
Notches on a weapon can indeed refer to kills.

 

Notches on a weapon can indeed refer to kills.

As they say on Wikipedia, 'Citation needed'

 

From a senior member of Gunboards....
"As for "kill notches" on firearms, they do exist. They are also next to impossible to document."

I'm content with that explanation ...

 

If they 'do exist' how does he know? Divine revelation? Even the reporters whose fanciful tales of the old west made up most of the stuff they wrote.

It may be sad to say but almost everything people sort of believe about the Wild West is fanciful nonsense. Smallpox killed more than drunken cowboys who'd be as likely to hit someone standing behind them as anyone.


Does a plumber mark his wrench? Vanity is a very good way to get killed. If you are serious you don't fool about with this sort of exhibitionist stuff, you just do the job and get on.

An of course, assuming this piece is from Sears, those notches are just another fantasy.

 

Hi AF,
As to notches on your guns. Miss Violet, a very elderly proper lady in my church invited me to lunch. Afterwards she showed me her house. In her bedroom I asked about the hundreds of ribbons tied to her bed. She said "Men put notches on their gun, I put ribbons on my bed". I almost went into convolutions. It seems Miss Violet was a Zeigfield Folly girl in her youth.
greg

 

Bomber crews marked their sorties, & fighter aircraft were routinely marked with the pilots ' kills' .
They were serious ......Dead serious.....& the biggest exhibitionists of all.
Enemy pilots would try to ' make their bones' with aircraft so marked , or....they'd do their level headed best to stay out of their line of fire.

I wouldn't call any of those boys , from either side.....vain.

I'm looking at a B-17 photo right now , & it's got 50 missions marked on it's side.

I have Spitfire models and paintings and photo's around my house, & my computer is loaded with them. G-d bless the RAF .

History is replete with tales of warriors , soldiers , outlaws and lawmen marking a host of their different weapons.
Who's to say none of them are true !

 

Can you find similar marking on WWI aircraft? By the 1940s Hollywood had invented the culture.

 

Well then I guess I'm wrong.

 

Discussion thread about WWI victory markings on aircraft:
http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31959