A current post in the for sale section shows a rifle with the one time owner's initials carved into the stock with the date 1910. This got me thinking about a 1922 Hopkins & Allen that I own that the owner inscribed with his initials, W.H. on one side of the receiver and with the propeller and wings of the old Army air Corps. on the other. The job was done surprisingly well and I can just see some proud young boy doing this with the awl on his Boy Scout knife. To me this does not detract from the rifle at all but gives it character and a touch of immortality to young W.H. Just wondering about others out there that may have a similar unknown tale. When I get a new rifle or shotgun I take off the butt plate and put in a piece of paper with my name and info as well as when and where I got it and what I paid. It's a small thing but could really make someone's day in 100 years.

I'm sure all of my single shots have a story but none have given me any clues to their provenance. I tend to buy orphans that are mechanically sound but almost never pretty. All have signs of honest wear and tear, some have signs of a very hard life, some you can tell meant enough to warrant well executed changes like a different barrel. I tear all of them down for inspection and have that hope of finding info from the past. 
You can be sure I would listen to their stories if they could talk.

I wont pass up old clunkers if the price is right. I bought this old Rolling Block Sporter for $200 to get the action. The rest of the gun was a huge mess! The barrel has a front dovetail that was cut with a hacksaw and close to 1" wide. In the bottom of that crude dovetail someone had filed a 3/8" dovetail so the sight was barely above barrel top flat. The top tang had six holes for different tang sights, only two were the originals. The stocks had huge chunks out of both forearm and buttstock. Only good thing was the barrel had a brand new .22LR liner.
I took off the wood and disassembled the action to get ready to remove the barrel when I noticed a name on the bottom of the barrel under the forearm. It read E.C. HACKETT, so I stopped and figured I better Google the name before I disassemble it. As soon as I entered the name I got bunches of responses for Hackett! All those responses referred to Oregon and Oregon City, which I found interesting since that's where I live. The seller had given me his business card and I had stuffed it in my pocket without looking at it when I bought it in Reno. I looked it over and he also was from Oregon, which made sense he had an Oregon gun.
I arranged to meet with the curator at the Oregon City Historical Society and show her the rifle. I also asked for "everything they had on EC Hackett and she chuckled. She told me they had over 2500 pages documenting him, and sat me down at a computer and let me pick the info I wanted.
EC had been born there when Oregon was a territory, and became one of the early deputies. Later  he got deep into politics and became Mayor of Oregon City. After that he became county recorder until his death in 1937 at 86 years old.
So the clunker I bought turned out to have great provenance, and is one of my favorites. I repaired the barrel dovetail by having a friend mill it out smooth, and building a tight filler. Then cut a new 3/8" dovetail. I filled all the extra tang sight holes and polished the plugs off smooth and touched up the tang. Then installed a tang sight on it to conceal the plugs. Repaired all the missing pieces on stock and forearm, and replaced the missing sling hook on the bottom of the buttstock. It's no beauty queen, but it retains it's originality, and all the wear and use EC put on it without the abuse later owners did to it.

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Jonathan wrote yesterday at 11:34am:


I have pictures of EC with his hunting dogs, and pictures of him in other scenes. Plus pictures of his home that's still standing and on the National Historical Registry. Plus the End of the Oregon Trail marker sits in the front yard of the Hackett House.
I think my folder on EC Hackett is about 1" thick now.

I own Emil Flues's brother's Model 1881 Marlin scheutzen rifle that Flues built for him also. With lots of documentation on Flues and his time as designer at Ithaca. 
Also have a huge file on General Charles Phillips and the .22 Ballard #3 given to him by his troops of the 4th Maine Artillery, Hamden Rifles. 
And LG Pridy's three barrel cased Ballard-Pope takedown set when he shot on the Denver Rifle Club team that set the new world team record in 1919.
Doc Davis's cased Schoyen Ballard offhand rifle in a unique Hereford hide covered case.
In almost every case these were guns others passed on and didn't want for some odd reason. I find it somewhat humorous when guys walk away form neat guns with provenance without considering how much that history means.

Sometimes interesting information can come from unusual places. I had posted at one time about a military Belgian Comblain single shot I had. I got a note from Jonathan Kirton (The British Falling Block Breechloading Rifle from 1865) may he RIP. He said he had quite a bit of information about them and asked for the markings on the stock. I sent them to him and he replied with the town home guard it was issued to. Turns out the little town was the home town of 2 of my Belgian friends. Small world. Of course the history of some rifles is much easier to acquire. Winchesters can usually be tracked to the original description and the business to which it was shipped. Bespoke rifles like my Alexander Henry and John Rigby gave me the description plus the person who ordered them from the maker's original records which led to a lot of information on the original owner

That was great and reminded me of a story from a Japanese-American secretary we had at work. In 1941 her father was farming land in the Big Horn battle area and had plowed up several guns. When Dec 7 came along he saw the handwriting on the wall and in 1942 dumped all the guns down the outhouse. Thus, great provenance was literally turned to s---. The family spent the war in the concentration camp in Amache, Colorado. Actually this wasn't as bad a place for a farmer as some because of the favor of the Colorado Governor.  Oddly, a contractor at work was also Japanese-American and his family was sent to the Topaz Relocation Center in the Sevier Desert, about 16 miles northwest of Delta, Utah. Not as good a place if any could have been described as good.