Northfield Smith

[Eggman]

Post deleted

[John Holland]

Great history, thanks for posting it! It would be interesting to know which of the 3 manufacturers made this particular Smith Carbine. Looking at the photo of the cartridge.....did they really stick the percussion cap on the bottom of the cartridge to look like a primer?

[Hal]

I suspect it's like a lot of stuff you see in museums that you KNOW is wrong. It makes you wonder what all else they got wrong and whether to believe the crap you read on the little cards about stuff you aren't as familiar with. All the packs of cartridges I've ever seen had some caps in them, but the caps were packed together, not one with each individual cartridge and usually in a quantity greater than the number of cartridges.

[John Holland]

Eggman, I have no doubt whatsoever you are absolutely correct!

[Hal]

I can't tell you how many times I see stuff in museums that I know to be incorrect. I don't say anything because they don't know me and who am I for them to trust my word? I'm sure their resident expert has a lot more credibility than me, especially with them. Know what I mean? But it does make you wonder how much other stuff in a given museum is incorrect. You go there hoping to see interesting things and learn something, but I don't want to 'learn' things that are wrong, so I tend to take it all with a grain of salt.

And on a different, but related subject. I stopped off at a Civil War themed museum in VA a couple of years back. They had a nice little collection of Civil War firearms. However, there was obvious red rust on some of them. I don't know if there was a problem with the seal on their glass cases or what, but the guns were beginning to rust. I mentioned this to the ladies at the front and they told me I didn't know what I was talking about because those displays were only x months old or something like that and there was no way there could be any rust. Whatever. Ain't my collection. But you'd think they would show a little concern and if it turned out to be nothing, then forget about the fat guy that mentioned it. Based on their reaction, I suspect they did only that last part and it took all of 5 seconds.

[Scott Patton 4378]

Looks like it's not a cap, really just a wire mount on the bottom that looks like a cap from the other view.
6817

[Eggman]

Once you complete Bob Freeman Inc, Here's Henry Wheeler.

[Southron Sr.]

Having worked for a museum ten years (and that was years ago) and working with many Curators, I can tell you that most professional Curators have no clue when it comes to antique firearms.

The Museum Studies program at Cooperstown, New York is considered one of the best, and graduates of the program end up with a Masters Degree in Museum Studies. Note that there are no courses in the program teaching the history and development of firearms:

https://suny.oneonta.edu/cooperstown-graduate-program/museum-studies-ma

[Ron The Old Reb]

"See Clell Miller in the middle next to Chadwell, Bob Younger on right. Can't help but wonder if that massive swelling on Cole Younger's face was due to Henry Wheeler's Smith bullet ricocheting off his head."

As Charles Bronson said at the end of Kinjite "Now that's justice "