Feature & Exhibit Detail
| Cased Pair of Colt New Model 1861 Navy Revolvers with Accessories |
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| Indian Wars, 2nd Floor | ||||||||||
| By tradition belonging to George Armstrong Custer. American (Hartford, Connecticut), 1863. Photograph by John Fitzgerald. Courtesy of the Frazier International History Museum. |
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This cased pair of pistols and accessories is of artistic and historical interest. The high quality of the decoration and finish suggests that it was executed to order for a prestigious military supplier. The pistols’ grips once had plaques attached, and these are said to have been inscribed as presentation gifts to Civil War General George Armstrong Custer. The likely decorator of these pistols, Louis D. Nimschke, represented the finest in American arms decoration during the second half of the nineteenth century. Nimschke was a custom engraver of German ancestry who rendered his designs on weapons provided by the manufacturer to him in a semi-finished state, the surfaces having been ground and polished but not otherwise treated. He worked for more than one hundred clients, with his commissions received largely from the New York City area, but he also did work for illustrious foreign customers in Central and South America andThe earliest known association with Custer was claimed by a collector who owned them at the time of the First World War. The serial numbers of the pistols indicate that they were made in Hartford in 1863. If they were owned by Custer, it is possible that they were presented to him by an admirer for his actions at the Battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863. It has been suggested that after his death his widow had the plaques removed to avoid embarrassment for having to sell the pistols. The whereabouts of the plaques and the content of the inscription remains unknown. |
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