…and given the breaking news today, I suspect it’s going to be a manic Monday. (Also, I have to go to the eye doctor tomorrow.) So how about a little distraction?
Who Invented the ‘Wheelgun’?, N.R. Jenzen-Jones (ed). Headstamp Publishing, Nashville, TN, 2023.
This is a new book that you can still get from Headstamp, so I’m going to use a link instead of a photo. I believe it was issued in conjunction with Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier & Artemas Wheeler (also available).
This is a book of historical revolver related reprints: Samuel Colt’s 1851 lecture on “Rotating Chambered-breech Firearms”, two articles (“Guns and Pistols”. and “Revolvers”) from Charles Dickens’s “Household Words” magazine (not written by him) and an article, “A Day at the Armory”, in which the author tours the Colt factory (as it was in 1857). There’s also some background material by Mr. Jenzen-Jones, Ben Nicholson, and Jonathan Ferguson.
This is a short little book, 143 pages. In spite of that, I have not read it yet, but I plan to soon-ish. This was a gift: I was working the registration table at the S&WCA Symposium with another member, we got to talking about books, it turned out he was another book guy in the association…and somehow he’d ended up with two copies of this, so he gave me his spare. Which was most gracious and kind, and I would thank him here if I didn’t think I’d be violating his privacy.
So thank you, Masked Man!
I’m adding this photo because I wanted to give a sense of relative size between the Winans book and a standard hardback. When I said “little”, I did mean “little”.
Automatic Pistol Shooting. Walter Winans. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York and London, 1915. Riling 1806. I believe this is a true first, though it is possible that it is just a first US. Bilblographic information is fuzzy. (There is no printer’s key.) Riling says this is based on the author’s “Hints on Revolver Shooting”, “with little more new material except for that pertaining to the automatic and its use”.
This is also a little book (133 pages plus ads), and rather curious, as one might expect from a 100+ year old book. I’ve written about Walter Winans before, so I’ll just note that the included chapters include “Duelling”, “Pistol Shooting for Ladies”, and “Shooting Off Horseback”. I will also note that I don’t think modesty was one of the things he could brag about (as you probably figured out from the title page above). Obviously, this is more historical document than practical advice for today, though I am amused by some of his contemporary comments: the abolition of dueling was not entirely a good thing, and women have a veritable plethora of places to conceal a revolver or pistol compared to men, among others.
This was part of the batch I bought from my other book buddy in the Association. Since I paid one price for the batch, it is tough to figure an individual price, but he had a $100 price tag on it. I’d call this “very good”. But it lacks a dust jacket. ABE right now lists a couple of other copies also lacking jackets for around $80 in “good” to “very good” condition, and one “near fine” with a “fair” dust jacket for $125. So I probably paid right at market for this.
The American Cartridge: An Illustrated Study of the Rimfire Cartridge in the United States, Charles R. Suydam. G. Robert Lawrence, Santa Ana, CA, 1960. Also a first I think (no printer’s key) and too late for Riling, but is listed in Biscotti.
A study of the rimfire cartridge in the United States, starting with the original for the Smith and Wesson Model 1, which I have a very good reason for being interested in (I never did a gun crankery post about that gun, did I?) all the way up through the Spencer cartridges and even some of the experimental military ones. This includes a lot of illustrations of the cartridges and of their boxes when available. I’m not an expert on the subject, only a dabbler at the moment, but I think this is probably still a very valuable reference for the cartridge collector.
Also part of the same batch, also marked at $100. I’d be willing to go with “fine” on this, or at least “very good”. The jacket is in a protector, but I can’t see any flaws at all. It probably sat on someone’s shelf this way for years. Market on ABE seems to be between $35 and $65, with a fine copy going for $300. And there’s one signed by Mr. Suydam for $157 in similar condition. (There are also various reprints of what is supposedly a 1973 revised edition listed for $75-$85.)
Horse and Buggy West: A Boyhood on the Last Frontier, Jack O’Connor. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1969, second printing. This is tagged as a “Borzoi Book” but is not listed separately in Biscotti’s Borzoi bibliography (it is listed, however, as part of his general entry on Mr. O’Connor). It is also listed in his sporting books bibliography.
Also haven’t read all of this yet, but I wonder how much of a gun or sporting book it is. From the jacket copy, it seems to be more Mr. O’Connor’s reminiscences of growing up in Tempe, Arizona, around the turn of the century. “The Tempe Jack O’Connor recalls was already in the twentieth century, but the flavor of the frontier still permeated daily life.”
This looks like it could be a lot of fun, if you enjoy the flavor of Jack O’Connor’s writing. The young O’Connor goes to a dance:
“I have been watching you,” she said as we started off. “You’re afraid to touch a girl. You’re afraid to put your knee between a girl’s legs. There’s nothing down there that’s going to bite you!” I wasn’t so sure about that.
Also part of the same book batch, with a $60 tag. Also in “fine” condition, in a jacket protecter with no flaws or marks that I can see, except a previous owner’s (not obnoxious) bookplate. There are a lot of copies on ABE, not all of which specify the printing. I did find one not-as-nice sounding (but still good) second for $110, and one “very good” (probably about as nice) for $195 and prices head north from there. So I think I’m ahead on this deal…
I think next time I’m going to go through a few more Samworths. This one will probably be a little shorter, as two of the Samworths I want to cover are duplicates of ones I’ve already written about, and the other two are related. I also have even more Jack O’Connor (including one Borzoi for Sportsmen) and even more Samworths from that book buddy batch, so we’ll see.