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Was lost...... but now is found

TangoSierra
Hello y,all. I have been reading here for almost three years but didn't feel like I really had anything to contribute until the other day and I wanted to share it with everyone. Back in the 1920's and 30's my grandad's brother had the old family farm and grandad share cropped nearby. They had a hired hand named Frank that helped them both. Sometime in the early 30's Frank was diagnosed with kidney cancer and passed away. He had no family so he was buried where most of the family was buried at that time. In the 40's grandad left the farm and moved two counties away and went to work for the railroad. He passed away in 1950 and when Grandmother moved from their house about 1960 she still had a lot of grandad's things that she gave my dad and his brothers and sister. About 1970' dad showed me a small square box that was grandad's. In the box were two pistols that had belonged to Frank. We looked at them and dad put them back in the closet. About twentyfive years ago I asked dad about them and he gave me the box and I took it home with me and put it up in my closet at my house. In 1992 my wife and I built a new house and moving day was a disaster. Many of my things were lost and put in the flea market pile. I didn't discover this until several months later when I began looking for some of my grandads things. The box with Frank's pistols was nowhere to be found. Dad passed away in 1995. One afternoon last week I stopped by Mother's on the way home to use my blower to clean the leaves off of her driveway. She had been cleaning out some closets and cabinets and had asked me about throwing away some things she had found. When I had finished, I went in the house and she was sitting at the bar and we were talking when she pushed a square box across the bar to me. I almost cried. There was the square box with dad's handwriting on it that said "GUNS".I have no Idea when or how it got back to dad's house, but Frank's guns were there!
Both of them are top break and are hammerless. One is,or was, blued finish with about a three inch barrel and overall length of 7.5 inches. It has black "plastic" grips and on top of the barrel is stamped Eastern Arms Co. and appears to be about a 38 caliber. The other is chromed and has a barrel length of just under three inches and is about 6.5 inches over all and appears to be about a 32 caliber.It has "plastic" grips also but with an owls head in a circle at the top of each side. The top of the barrel is stamped Iver Johnson Arms and Cycle works, Fitchborough Mass. USA. Another interesting thing about this one is the trigger. It has a lever on it like a modern Glock that keeps the trigger from being pulled until the lever is depressed.
I would guess that they are close to 100 years old and probably not worth anything more than trotline weights, but they mean something to me. Yeah, I know, this post is worthless with out pics but everytime I try to fit the 35mm film into the CD drawer it keeps getting hung up...LOL. I'll have to see if I can get my son to take some digital pics an post them for me, he is the family computer guru. Sorry for the length of this but I was excited and wanted to share the entire story with everyone. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! [:)]
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Comments

17 comments

Date Votes
  • dan55362
    Thanks for sharing, it was a good read.[;)]
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  • D1
    I have the letter my Dad wrote me and put in an envelope for me to find way after his death. He gave me all of his guns in that letter.
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  • Zebra
    Good reading Tango, welcome and Merry Xmas also. [:D]
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  • fideau
    Welcome to the forum. I think that is a great story. I'll tell you mine. When I was six years old my dad took me out into the back yard, we lived on the family farm too, and put an H&R Hunter .22 revolver in my hand and taught me how to shoot it. Years later when I was in my early teens I would take that old revolver out squirrel hunting. It was almost like a rifle. I shot it a lot as did my older brother. I kind of lost interest in it after my dad gave me a shotgun and we had rifles around too. One day I noticed it was not in the drawer where it was kept and I asked him about it. He said he had loaned it to a friend. That was a year or so before he died, I was 17 at the time. Couple years later I looked up that friend and he told me he had bought the H&R from my dad and had sold it to someone else, he couldn't remember who. Now it is about twenty years later and I am in the local gun store and hanging on the wall behind the counter I see that H&R. I looked it over and recognized it immediately, I knew every mark and scratch on it. It had been brought in for repair and the owner was a man I knew. I contacted him and told my story and he let me set my price for the gun and I made it a fair one, probably more than he would have asked. It had been pretty abused, had broken springs and a bullet stuck about half way up the 10 in. barrel. It took a while but I found repair parts and cleaned it up and it is shootable again, but I really didn't care whether it was or not. It's not worth much monetarily but it's priceless to me. To have something from an earlier and happy time is a comfort. I know how you feel.
    My best to you and your family for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
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  • sarge_3ad
    Nice story, and Welcome to the boards. Hope to see you post more often.
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  • leftytwoguns
    Good stories, you're lucky to have such memories.
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  • arraflipper
    Thanks for sharing, I think we all have memories that we could share, or should share. I have some good ones and some not so good ones.

    A couple years ago my brother's house on Las Vegas was broken into. Besides the small things they stole all his guns. One was our great grandfathers Webley black powder pistol. He had when he worked at the post office. They also got one of my fathers Remington shotguns. The police there seemed to not care much and two weeks after it happened they had it so botched up they could of been standing on them and not found them. They asked my brother two or three times was he sure the door was locked. He finally said I don't think it matters, as they had knocked clear off the hinges and it was laying flat on the floor.

    The good side it I still have my dad's Winchester model 12 Pigeon grade with a custom stock. He shot trap a lot with it, and I hope I can pass it on to my nephew some day, even thou it won't mean near as much to him as it does me.

    Jim
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  • dipits
    Good read.

    MERRY CHRISTMAS
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  • texaswildman
    Now that is the way all first posts should be! Merry Christmas TS
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  • abcguns2
    Welcome aboard !!!! very nice read ...wish I had some of those type (or any) of good memories ...But , after the ALIEN kidnapping thing , its just not the same .....
    Thanks !!!
    d.a.stearns
    Gunsmith / LEO a.k.a. SKEEZIX
    Niota , Tn
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  • mrseatle
    Cool, that was pretty nice of your Mom... at one point in the story I was expecting to hear that one of the Guns had "To my brother Frank, love Jesse" engraved on it.
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  • cce1302
    That's great, and welcome!
    post over in the Experts forum if you haven't already. They're interested in this kind of stuff.
    quote:didn't feel like I really had anything to contribute until the other day
    That's not a prerequisite for posting here.[;)]
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  • Sav99
    Welcome aboard Tango. [:)]
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  • Nighthawk
    Im glad you got them back, welcome aboard.



    Merry Christmas!!
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  • Permanently deleted user
    Nice story. Welcome aboard!
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  • tomh.
    You can have your 35mm film developed onto a CD. Then you can just download that into the puter.
    I have a nice 35mm camera and a bunch of lenses, so when I want a good pic, that's what I do. My digital camera is just good for snap-shots. And I don't really want to invest in a better digital right now.
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  • TangoSierra
    Thanks to everyone for the welcoming words, comments, reads, and sharing your stories. Y'all make me feel so warm and fuzzy... is this the part where we get to do the group hug thing ...?[:D][:D]
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