doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Items that have been given to you.........

Are there any doublegun gifts, heirlooms, things that have been handed down to you, things a relative gave you, etc., that are treasured by you?

When I was a kid my grandmother gave me these. They belonged to someone in the family years ago.

Great thread Jimmy, lets see what turns up!
Karl

My grandfather's stuff, (1856-1929) is among the neatest inheritances that subsequently passed through my father to me. Granddad's dog whistle collection, his E Grade Lefever pigeon gun, his mint 1916 DWM Luger that a saloon customer gave him after appropriating it from the New York Customs House, a lone picture of his pigeon ring during a Sunday shoot with participants all in their Sunday best, a 1910 picture of granddad and my dad and a third person with a long barrel pump gun. Granddad is holding a double gun with a repair in the grip, or maybe it's a Greener with a side safety, can't tell. The best is a pre 1910 picture of the front of granddad's saloon with a beer wagon and team and a preteen "dad". Granddad never used trucks in his beer distributing business until he sold the business in 1927. His first car was a 1929 Chrysler bought the year he died. Oh, that. There was no Prohibition in Hazleton, PA. Taverns locked their front doors and government people never went around back, except to shoot pigeons. My wife, The Lovely Linda, has family pictures from Cumberland, Maryland that include hunting pictures with a mix of muzzleloaders and early breechloaders with the subjects identified by name. Just so neat.

I have several material items with family or close friend heritage in my gatherings, but the finest gift was the mentoring & love these people did with me along the way forming and shaping the person I am. What they gave & passed down in this regard was priceless!

The material items are just reminders of these great people that I'll always cherish. Many of them are simple things like a GM service award my grandfather earned for 34 years of service as a Chevrolet mechanic, I also have a pair of his coveralls from the dealership to go along with it. This means a bunch to me simply because he was a great guy, but he was also one of my mechanical mentors who set me on the path of being a 44-year career mechanic myself. I used several of his tools I inherited throughout my career and still have them & use them now that I'm retired as well.

I could go on with listing the many items I have including some guns, but you would probably get bored with reading the list.

Guns, mostly. My Dad never really warmed up to his Beretta Silver Snipe 12 gauge. He knew I liked it. I bought my brother a second hand but, like new Savage BSE 12 gauge in about 1980, that he used his entire hunting life, that is here, now. The stock broke and you could still get new ones, so he bought one and when we put it on the first round sent a chunk of wood flying. I glued it back together, roughed up the glossy varnish on the gun, and shot it with some more varnish, doing the only “invisible” stock repair I’ve ever pulled off. He took a bunch of deer with that gun, and three grouse, that I know of.
My buddy Carl made sure two of his Darne gun and an Italian Richland 20 came to live here. My buddy Scott invited me over for dinner one day, and after dinner, brought out a gun slip with his Dads A5 12 gauge in it, and told me his late Dad had asked him to give it to me, and say thanks for the great hunting trips and dog work we shared.
There are, sadly, a bunch more. To me, it is bittersweet, and a powerful reminder of the men who helped form my hunting and fishing life who I will never see again. I’d trade every, single, one of them for one more day afield with my dad. Only a couple are guns that I have a good use for, most of these guys lived for ducks, geese and deer, but, the guns all quietly await another day afield, mostly in vain, I imagine-there are four deer rifles I’ve never fired in the mix. My brother is still alive, and I haven’t been able to wrap my head around shooting any of his guns just yet, either. It is a strange feeling of thinking he should be here with me when I want to use one, which leads me to picking up a different gun to use. I can’t sum it up any better than that.
None of them are treasure, but, they were treasured by men I treasured. I expect someday I will find them homes, but, I’m not there, yet.

Best,
Ted

Grandfather gave me this when I was 7 and is the reason I now have 2 safes and the double gun disease.

Dad left me this, among a few other things.

"Muff pistols"

Knives with integral 12 and 16 bore extractors are not uncommon, but this A&N stores knife has a graduating extractor which under thumb pressure on the lever (originally it had a button hook on the end) will extract smaller bores including .410 and rifle cartridges.

Made for A&N by Brookes and Crookes in Sheffield whose Bell trademark appears on the scales.

It was made under an 1892 patent of Joseph Westby and Charles Swift Levick, so could well be Victorian rather than Edwardian.

The makers, Brookes and Crookes traded until 1957, but I would guess it was made between 1892 and 1914

Given to me by Major Owen Tudor Richard Crawshay (1878 to 1972) it is treasured and usually goes out with me every time I go shooting.

It has done out a Roebuck the day I found that I had left my stalking knife behind.