Whipped Cream Difficulties

Another batch of books is icumen in, so time for some more documentation. I’m happy about this first one, as it fills a much needed void in my collection.

Smith and Wesson Hand Guns, Roy C. McHenry and Walter F. Roper. Standard Publications, 1945. As far as I can tell, this is a first printing. Riling 2527.

This was the first book that attempted to comprehensively cover S&W history (up through about 1944), and remains an important work for collectors.

I can’t find a flaw in this. I’d call it “fine”. Bought for just under $60 from a eBay vendor.

My Ropers, let me show them to you:

These are all (as far as I can tell) firsts of all three books Walter Roper wrote or co-wrote. They’re not quite three of a perfect pair, as the Experiments has a bit of wear. But I’ve still never found another first in the wild in a better state.

(Previously on Pistol and Revolver Shooting. Previously on Experiments of a Handgunner.)

After the jump, another small curiosity…

The Colt Gun Book, Lucian Cary. Fawcett, 1961. A collection of short pieces on various aspects of Colt history, including the Peacemaker, the Gatling, and how to spot fakes. Bought for $7 from Half-Price.

Lucian Cary was an important gun writer during roughly the middle of the century, writing for the Saturday Evening Post and True magazine. (He was True‘s gun editor for 20 years.) I suspect these were previously published in True and recycled here. Of course I missed them the first time around…

Writer Lucian Cary didn’t think he was a “gun crank.” He simply had an enthusiasm for rifle shooting, like other people had for golf, fly fishing, or antique collecting. The difference, Cary assured Post readers in 1935, was that his was “a reasonable enthusiasm. … I do not go in for collecting guns. I never buy a gun unless I really need it. As a matter of fact, I really need a dozen, or say 14, more guns than I have now.”

A man after my own heart.

I have a couple of collections of his gun writings. There is apparently a collection containing his short stories about “J.M. Pyne”, a “thinly disguised” version of H.M. Pope, which I don’t have.

Mr. Cary passed in 1971. True stopped publishing in 1975.

(Note: “Riling” refers to Ray Riling’s bibliography. Entries are organized chronologically, and alphabetically within years. Each entry has a number, so “Riling 2527” refers to that entry.)

This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2022 at 5:34 pm and is filed under Books, Guns, Hoplobibilophilia, Smith and Wesson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.