December 6-8, 2023 Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/6/2023
An exceptionally rare and very historic Colorado lawman's age from a tumultuous time at the end of the American Old West. This solid gold badge is jeweler-made and weighs in at 30.3 grams of tested 14K+ gold. This style badge is the pinnacle of presentation pieces made at the height of the Victorian era of craftsmanship and pride in work. Badge is highly detailed, elegant, and ornate. Features an eagle-topped federal shield with lettering executed in blue enamel on 3 chiseled-edge, silver banners reading: "J. B. FARR / SHERIFF / HUERFANO CO COLO". The scroll-topped shield has tassels on each side and the edge is finely detailed with fancy drop elements around the rope frame. Badge is hand engraved in script on the reverse:" From / J.D. Montez / M.A. Virgil / P. L. Sanchez / A.D. Valdez / New Year 1903" with a period correct T back style pin attachment. A newspaper clipping of the era states in regards to the presentation of the badge: "The sheriff is justly proud of his handsome pin." Farr was a prominent player in the region as a hired gun for the Republican Party and their agendas. He was also involved with the Ludlow Massacre, a mass killing perpetrated by anti-striker militia during the Colorado Coalfield War. Soldiers from the Colorado National Guard and private guards employed by Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) attacked a tent colony of roughly 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Approximately 21 people, including miners' wives and children, were killed. John D. Rockefeller Jr., a part-owner of CF&I who had recently appeared before a United States congressional hearing on the strikes, was widely blamed for having orchestrated the massacre. Author Anthony Roland DeStefanis writes in his 2004 dissertation on the subject, Soldier Strikebreakers on the Long Road to the Ludlow Massacre: "The sheriffs offices in both counties were crucial in maintaining Republican rule. In Huerfano County, Sheriff Jefferson Farr was the party's enforcer. Farr was a Texan who came to Colorado with his two brothers to become ranchers. The three brothers eventually became the biggest cattle dealers in southern Colorado. Farr's brother Edwin was elected Huerfano County's sheriff in the mid-1890s. In 1899, a group of train robbers that included former members of Black Jack Ketchum and Butch Cassidy's gangs held up a train just across the state line in the New Mexico territory. Posses raised in Walsenburg and Trinidad caught up with the robbers, and in the gunfight that followed, Edwin Farr was shot and killed. Jefferson took his brother's place as sheriff, and used the office to help expand his personal real estate holdings." A fantastic badge that crosses many collector categories, and would be the highlight of any collection. PROVENANCE: Richard "Dick" Burdick collection. CONDITION: Very Good - Excellent. Only the slightest age commensurate period wear, mostly on the reverse.