doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Kudo's to Bob Beach

I have to check my eagle to see what color the shield is

Bob's been very helpful to me as well. Recently acquired a nice little Francotte Knockabout 20ga ejector gun from Mark Beasland. A&F import from the 50's. Bob provided very interesting information on the gun, sale price etc, plus a lot on the original owner whose initials are on the shield. And he also explained to me an anomaly in Francotte serial numbers. Mine is 4 digit, which does not fit with any Francotte SN lists I've seen. Turns out that Francotte started a new series (at 1000) in the mid-50's for guns imported by A&F.

Doug, thats a cracker,I too love those Francotte fences
I am a big fan of these Guns
Franc otte..Duh!

Some years ago I asked Bob about a plain Webley 700 I own. He called me back and said I really needed to have the full information. Turns out the original buyer ran a CIA front for the laundering of money to help finance the Bay of Pigs invasion and also had a hand financing the Nicaragua guerillas. Interesting feller. Doesn't add any to the value of the gun but is just fun stuff.

Joe, the original buyer wouldn't have been Sam Cummings, would it?

Bob Beach does amazing research on these old guns. He certainly went above and beyond on a gun I had some years back. Instead of a research letter I received a manilla envelope with about 3/8" thick of research documents and copies of book and ledger pages.
Also a very complete set of research copies of bio stuff on the original owner.

I would venture the same guess that Larry did. Sam Cummings was the importer for Webley and Scott for some years. Neat guy with many stories to tell.

I had the same experience...Geo

I was amazed at the amount of information Mr. Beach e-mailed, prior to receiving payment from me!

Larry, the buyer was Harold Chait who transported money from The Boston Metals Processing Company and also the Baldt Anchor and Chain Company using trust accounts at The Bank of Maryland to the South Florida Soldiers of Fortune who put the funds into the hands of the ragtag army. Both companies were CIA fronts for laundering money. Evidently the same model was also used in the Iran Contra fiasco. A trust officer at the bank by the name of Robert Maxwell became a whistle blower exposing the scheme.

Chait purchased the gun shortly before Christmas, 1957 and the A&F records noted to charge it to the Boston Metals account. I wonder if he used it as a gift to some shadowy character.....

An Internet search of these people is really interesting, revealing all the intrigue of the best of the spy novels.