September 26, 2018 O'Connor's Americana Collection
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/26/2018
Early in the picture, Christopher Holden enters the tavern owned by Garth and spies an Indian wearing his sidekicks, "Furface", powder horn, he removes this knife from the Redman's neck scabbard, cuts the cord of the horn and plunges the knife into the bottom of a stool, moments later the Indian is shot by Holden as the former removes the knife and attempts to throw it at Holden. The single edge blade struck "S" on its reverse, octagonally shaped iron guard an "S" partially struck on its underside. Hardwood bulbous grip with brass ferrule at either end. The pommel cap is a series of five brass discs. The "S" marking signifies The Stembridge Gun Room, in whose massive collection this was found by this writer. Stembridge, founded in 1924 by James Stembridge on Paramount's lot through the urging of Mr. De Mille, eventually garnered some 10,000 firearms and remained in business until 1991. This knife, though having a "frontier" appearance, is actually a classic Chinese product and the type is found with ancient and valueless brass coins of that country used as the pommel cap and this may well be the case here. This knife was featured on loan in the Fort Pitt Museum and Heinz History Center exhibits "Unconquered: History Meets Hollywood at Fort Pitt" between August of 2013 and October of 2014 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This lot includes the loan agreement for the exhibits and a hand written description, as seen above, by Walter O'Connor.