Southern Derringers of the Mississippi ValleyKirkland, Turner
History
Southern Derringers of the Mississippi Valley
Kirkland, Turner
Firearms industry and trade -- Mississippi River Valley; Pistols -- Mississippi River Valley
#286 Sieber of Nashville, Tennessee is virtually unknown among my gun
collector friends and dealers until this gun turned up in Norman
Flayderman’s catalog in 1970. It is definitely Nashville made with the
characteristics of those guns in the full octagon barrel, the escutcheon
plate under the forearm holding the screw to attach the barrel, and the
lack of engraving. The buttcap, sideplate, nameplate on the wrist, and
escutcheons are of German silver. The trigger guard, believe it or not,
is of brass and appears to be original. The barrel is a little different
in that the bottom half is rounded with the top half octagon. To say
this another way, there are three octagon flats at the top of the barrel
with the other part underneath rounded. There is a gold blow-out plug on
the breechplug. Two bands at the breech are of gold and silver and one
silver band at the muzzle. It is a shame, but someone in the past has
sand-papered the barrel which is in extra fine condition. They saw the
old brown color and thought they were removing rust when actually the
gun had original browning on the barrel and some smart fellow removed
all of it. I would call this a high quality but plain derringer. Its
caliber is .440.
The only markings are on the top barrel flat as follows:
E. R. Sieber,
Nashville, Tenn.
H. G. NEWCOMB
H. G. Newcomb is a little known maker of Vicksburg, Mississippi who made
his own derringers. I have only heard of two guns by this maker and they
are in a collection in Mississippi and maybe sometime we can obtain this
specimen for photographing and describing.
Apparently Newcomb was active about the same time as O’Dell but he lived
into the early 1870’s. Two of his derringers are known and one is even
more ornate than O’Dell produced guns while the other is very plain. It
is rumored that some genuine Henry Deringers were agent marked with
Newcomb’s name but I have never personally seen one of these guns.
UNKNOWN
#221 Here is an unmarked derringer that could have been made either in
Nashville or in Memphis according to the sheath trigger and the flat
butt. Bitterlick produced guns of this style and marked them but I do
not have one for my collection. Notice that this is made of curly maple
rather than like all the rest of walnut. The full octagon barrel has one
silver band at the breech. The tang is marked with “#1”. There is no way
to determine whether this gun was made in Nashville or Memphis. Its
caliber is .480.
UNKNOWN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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