17 December 2011

Grampa's Guns

These are the guns that defended the COOP gas station at the corner of 2nd St and Lincoln Way in Nevada, Iowa for at least thirty years.


This was Grampa's "tool-box gun.  It's a Harrington and Richardson "Automatic" 2nd Model 1st Variation; made in 1891 as near as I have been able to determine.  It's chambered for six rounds of .32 S&W Long.  Despite being a "cheap" gun it still locks up good and tight.  It hits point of aim at 10 yards, but that firing pin will pierce one primer in about ten.  It's definitely a black-powder gun, I didn't know that when I bought smokeless ammo and fired it.  This gun is the first gun I carried when I got my Florida permit, the Glock 21 being a lot too big for summer.




This is the "under-the-counter" gun.  The rationale for the smaller gun than the H&R was that grandma would often be out front doing the books and she needed something smaller.  This is an Iver Johnson Safety Hammer Automatic five shooter chambered in .32 S&W and made in 1911.

These two guns have almost exactly zero intrinsic value, but vast sentimental worth.

4 comments:

  1. Wow I loved when you told the story of them, I'm surprised they look as good as they do.

    And by "Good" I mean "Great"

    As for their monetary value I suspect their market price is "Fuck off, they're not for sale!"

    Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Very nice to see these McT. I have my great uncles IJ 38 that he carried nearly a century ago. He used it to defend against a mugging once - and managed to take the mugger's pants instead.

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  3. The old H&R revolvers were actually top of the line for suicide specials back then.

    For a cheap revolver, they were very well built.

    Period ads featured a drawing of someone pounding the hammer down with a carpenter's hammer ... supposedly illustrating its inherent safety features.

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  4. Couple of very nice examples, and back in the day, both were well respected manufacturers! Good piece of family history too!

    ReplyDelete

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