Rock Island Auction has over 500 Colts up for their September Auction including 40 Pythons (!) and a bunch of really nice rares such as a Third Model Hartford London Dragoon, “D Company” Walker Model 1847, and a set of Model 1851 Navy “Squarebacks.”
This is my favorite, though:
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Stamped with “U.S.” marks and a silver-gray patina, this Single Action Army in .45LC includes a rare “Ropes” type flap holster of the type used during the Spanish-American War. If a gun could talk…
In the darkest days of WWII, 24-year-old Pvt. Evelyn Ernest Owen, with 2/17 Battalion of the Australian Army, from Wollongong, New South Wales, submitted a homemade gun he made to the Army for testing.
His handy burp gun used a gramophone spring, was chambered in .22 rimfire, and was rejected.
But he kept working on the design, and, in full production by 1943, proved one of the most popular of WWII submachine guns– at least in Commonwealth service in the Pacific.
Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck spoke at City Hall last Wednesday next to a table of guns including what appeared to be a Thompson semi-auto carbine, a few AK-pattern rifles, and some AR-15 lower receivers. The guns were part of a 791-weapon haul from the City’s annual Gun Buyback event held last Saturday that saw $200 gift cards from Ralph’s traded for the guns.
Sure, they are unwanted guns that could have eventually found their way into the hands of criminal elements who are prohibited from buying guns from lawful dealers over the counter, but there most likely weren’t any honest crooks themselves in line last weekend to turn their gatts in.
Most of the guns weren’t worth much, as evidenced from the fact that Papa Garcetti could only cough up a few pitiful examples to show off, but there was one really nice piece that probably could have been saved.
It was a milsurp M1911A1 that, at least until his death, was registered to Sammy Davis Jr.
The entertainer died May 16, 1990 at age 64 in Beverly Hills after a battle with throat cancer. Besides being a talented performer and founding member of the Rat Pack, SDJ was an accomplished trick shooter.
Occasionally wearing his custom 1873 Colt SAAs on stage with his highly-tooled one-of-a-kind Western rig, SDJ would captivate fans with an exhibition of his quick-draw abilities.
He also reportedly loved to target shoot and was a guest star on a number of popular Western TV shows of the 50s and 60s such as “The Rifleman,” “Zane Grey Theatre,” and “Wild, Wild West” where he got to use hardware on screen.
As for his M1911, I spoke with the public affairs people with the LAPD and the Mayor’s office, championing the possibility (which would cost the city nothing) of exhibiting SDJ’s .45 at the LAPD Museum. They could even have scrapped the barrel or internals in an effort to render it harmless and included an anti-gun treatise on how it was bought “off the streets” in an effort to save lives.
Nope, they advised. As the gun was not stolen or used in a pending crime as far as they knew of, it would be scrapped.
Cliff and Lynne Young assembled a collection over a 65 year period but it will be sold in just a day by Cowan Auctions this week, with subsequent offerings put on the block later in the year and in 2017.
As you can imagine, these are not your typical gun show relics.
“There are collectors who just buy Confederate arms,” said Lewis. “Cliff went deeper than that. Quality and historical significance were paramount. These are truly the best known examples of some of the rarest Confederate weapons ever produced.”
Young was a studious collector, often documenting his guns to a degree far surpassing what is typically seen.
“Some of them have a file of provenance two-feet thick,” said Jack Lewis, Cowan’s director of Historic Firearms and Early Militaria in a statement.
Here is some of the more than 47 uber-rare items on the block:
The unique, one-of-a-kind wooden model for the LeMat revolver submitted to the U.S. Patent Office for protection against competitors.
Griswold & Gunnison percussion revolver. Featured prominently in AMC’s Hell on Wheels, interest in these ultra rare Confederate wheelguns has exploded in recent years. Cullen Bohannon, is that you?
J. H. Dance & Brothers Navy percussion Confederate revolver without recoil shield. “Always considered a ‘holy grail’ for the advanced Confederate arms collector”
Extremely rare Confederate Cofer Third Type Revolver in its original holster as captured by 11th Maine Captain S.H. Merrill. Just 266 Cofer revolvers were picked up by the Confederate government and only 15 are believed to still exist.
The sale will be held at Cowan’s Auctions, 6270 Este Ave., Cincinnati. Public previews are noon to 5 p.m. Monday, April 25; and 8 to 10 a.m. both days of the sale, Tuesday and Wednesday, April 26-27.
Built for fabulously rich Indian nobility in 1925, one of the world’s rarest mechanical machineguns is being auctioned off. The gun is so nice that it is pulled, not by a tractor or jeep, but by its very own custom made Rolls Royce.
In Las Vegas, Nevada, the annual Barrett-Jackson Auction Company’s three day automobile auction is turning a few heads with not only rare car collectors, but with those who would collect rare guns as well. You see they have an immaculate Rolls Royce, owned formerly by India’s Umed Singh II. This ruler was the Maharaja of Kotah for over fifty years from 1889 until World War 2. Besides luxurious cars, Singh apparently also had a passion for tiger hunting in style, and with some serious firepower.
Read the rest in my column at Firearms talk.com
