favorite Boss shotgun? or any of his guns for that matter?
Has it ever gone to auction like with Oswalds carcano,Booth`s derringer,etc??
I think one of his shotguns was in th Cody, WY. museum. But it has been 15 years since I was last there.
JERRY
I have read that Boss (the one he took his life with) was destroyed at the request of the family.
Use to be a old Skeet shooter in Baltimore who had a bullet fired from Oswalds carcano. Eightbore knows who I am talking about I am sure. He use to have a Rolls and shot the only Chrome plated Model 12 I ever saw. Said he hated cleaning guns after shooting. Truth is that he started drinking the stockand forgot to clean the gun. Last I knew he had a Skeet shoot named after him.
Heck of a fun guy to know. I miss all those old timers. Ed Calhoun, Ercell Dove, Harry Wright, Kurt Castle, ..... the sky is full of one of the best squads I will ever see and someday I might see them again. Just not for many years I hope. I am sure others have old timers they have lost and rarely think about.
his Beretta S2 (or was it a S3?) sold at auction a few years ago. i seem to remember it went for modest money.
A few months ago there was an extensive discussion of Hemingway and his guns on the SSM website. Couple of guys over there are gonzo about Hemingway history, and I think one of them is writing a book on the subject. Disposition of his guns was reviewed in that thread.
I heard someone offered to buy that Boss from Hemingway for next to nothing and Hemingway really gave him a piece of his mind.
Gentlemen The Latest Shooting Sporting Mag has a good artical on Hemingway By Calabi Former (Stand at the Bar and buy the Beer),And of course"The Ladies", Dont think that just because this is a "Spit & Sawdust"Site' That the Fair-Sex Aint rolling their Balls(Eyes) over the Small-Print and checking out the 'Dudes' in their Stinky Duck Shooting, Dove Slaughtering Water proofs,!!!!!I am re-stocking a pair of Boss 20b, DB for a Member or the Fair-Sex. they have been in the Family since 1934....Used continuously every Dove & Quail season,,,,,,,Let me tell you(FOR all the ExPurtts that continualy wail those 'Old Brit Guns just cant stand up to modern Sporting Clays Shooting.)....Your in the dark dudes, Proove it" I've listened to this Bull-Crappe"( Or to be "PC"I Feel Your Pain) for the last45 yrs...and I'm still re-stocking British Guns & Rifles from the",Excuse the Colonialisim',The Golden Age"The average age of my Clients bringing the Old Family Gun,35-45, (Or the Matched Pair thatUncle Brian used every year when he went to Scotlsnd got "pissed out of his tree" But always headed the list of Noteable American Shooters" I Read many stories in the Glossies...Guns and Ammo,Etc. BUT.....Where are You Now??? Here you are in the "Land of the Free" Buying new Guns, all that 'Loverly Ammo" but the Majority of Shooters" Squirt your Ball-Point in the General Direction ofDBgunshop...Nothing of Substance...Where are the John Ambers, Elmer Keiths, Skeeter Skeltons, Carmichaels,Alex Kerrs, Bill Jorden,Paytron Aubrey,I had the "Honour" to Hob-Nob with these Men...Whoops almost forgot to mention Carola Mandel, Elenor Lagorio,Ceciela Gaige, "Broads who Really knew where to put their "Loads"... Whats Happened to the "So Called Red Blooded American Male"? Get the Ferk away from that Computer...Guns are made for Shooting.....Then Tell your Story....Get out from under that Dammed Rock.....Where are the "Good Old Boys"///"All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down" (Hanks Greatest"!!)cc/dt
I believe his Model 21 sold at auction a few years ago. I think his oldest son still has some of his guns if he is still alive. His younger son, Chris died in jail a few years ago dressed as a female prostitute. I noticed today that several of Roy Rogers' and Dale Evans' guns are going up for auction including Roy's Model 21 trap gun. I believe about 25 of his and her handguns are included, too. Good luck.
cc/dt, I'm sure you are aware that those that can, are out there shooting them. Just in my little group of acquaintences, there are way into seven figures being invested annually in fine guns, out of town hunts, the outdoor lifestyle, etc. In Amber's time, several of these high roller types flew within the radar and we lesser beings knew about their exploits. Today, the recipients of the mass outdoor media get less news of these "types" only because there are better publications than Guns and Ammo and Outdoor Life available, and these Guns and Ammo guys don't spring for the better publications. OK, so there aren't any John Ambers out there any more, but who really knows. We wouldn't know John Amber from Adam if he didn't publish the Gun Digest. As a matter of fact, Gun Digest readers didn't know one percent of what John Amber really was. Only after "the catalog" came out, we began to understand what a Rennaisance Man he really was. Before that, he was only a publisher who owned a few nice guns. Murphy
Jack, Papa's oldest boy, has been dead for several years now. Although Papa hung around a few wars, Jack was the closest Hemingway to a real hero: Behind the lines in France in WWII with the OSS (he jumped with a fly rod!), one of the very early Green Berets after the war. Wrote an interesting memoir; also some hunting and fishing stories for Field and Stream. But as he admitted in his memoir, his fate was to be the son of a famous father, and the father of famous daughters (Mariel and Margot).
My English (and some Scottish, truth be told) stuff needed a frustrating amount of good quality gunsmithing to keep it running. It wasn't because it was poorly designed, or, of poor quality. I think it was just old. It all had a lot of use before it was mine, and the Piper came calling, more often than not, on my watch. I wouldn't have dared use it for serious clays work, at least not after my outlays taught me not to. One Holland, several MacNaughtons, several Powels. There wasn't an ugly gun in the bunch, but, beauty is much more appreciated when the damn thing works. I can't run with seven figure guys (I don't have seven figures in pennies, let alone dollars) so that might be it. I learned a lot along the way, and my high dollar guns all belong to someone else now, with just a few, well fitted (to me) lower end examples to keep me happy, and those are treated to only very occasional use, in better than good conditions. I'm not eager to buy replacements, or any more good gunsmithing.
If they make guys like JT Amber, or, for that matter, Hemingway anymore, I haven't met them. I did meet Zutz, and he was a heck of a nice individual. These days, that might be all you should hope for.
Best,
Ted
Believe one os Papa's Beretta O/Us is at the NRA museum (S3, I believe).
I consider all those old timers not as heroes of any sort but as guys who did what any normal guy would have done given the opportunity.
They lived at the right time - you could buy choice firearms new or used for relatively cheap, and you could hunt and shoot just about anywhere. The world was a much bigger place back then.
Actually, Jack was assigned to the OSS (General Bill Donovan's unit, later to become the CIA- He was jump qualified, the unit was known as the Jedburghs I believe- they later became (under JFK) the elite Green Berets, just as the Navy Frogmen of WW11 later became the UDT and then the elite SEALs.
Back when fly fishing and collecting cane rods and Hardy and Bogdan reels was a passion of mine, I read his most interesting book "Misadventures of a Fly Fisherman" and he did indeed have a 4 pc. custom fly rod and a Hardy reel in his pack. He was captured and escaped and made his way out through France into the Basque area of Northern Spain.
I believe one of his two daughters took her own life, tragedy seems to have haunted both the Hemingway and Kennedy families.
RWTF, Jack actually went back into the military after the war and served in Special Forces (before JFK gave them their green berets). Margot committed suicide. As a young actress, her sister Mariel made a movie called "Personal Best" (in which you get to see a LOT of Mariel!), playing the role of a female track athlete preparing for the 1980 Olympics (when Carter kept our team home). Initially, she's a lesbian in that movie, but gets "converted" from the Dark Side by a fellow Olympian, a swimmer--played by Kenny Moore, who was a REAL Olympian, but as a marathoner and not a swimmer.
Very interesting, the fotos and the guns. My favorite of Hemingway's books is "Green Hills of Africa" and I have likened Karl in that story to Kurtz in my favorite of Joseph Conrad's books; "Heart of Darkness" set in Africa during the Boer Wars. There is also a great B graded movie based on that British Fubar Op- "Breaker Morant" and the famed "Rule 303" op. code--
I have read Patrick Hemingway's edited book "True At First Light" which may have been a re-write of Green Hills, but re-set in Africa 20 years later. In that saga, Hemingway uses his favorite 12 gauge M12 with No. 8 birdshot to dispatch a wounded leopard in a mangrove tangle. His description of that "twice burned up and restocked pumpgun as being 'The best friend a man gave have' speaks volumes to me- I am a lifelong Model 12 man.
Later in that book he writes about dispatching a favorite aging horse "Old Kite" in the American West, then leaving the carcass to bait eagles- and later dispatching a Bald Eagle (very protected species by the way) with a .22 Winchester- and running down the wounded bird, crasping it by the legs and smacking its head against a rock- and I thought Hemingway mistreated his wives- how did he ever get away with a Federal crime like that I wonder?
In the Hotchner book "Papa" Hemingway shot an owl in Idaho, then restored it and kept it as a house pet. Strange man--
Hemingway's fiction, and all his work is fiction, except perhaps, his writing on bull-fighting, "Death in the Afternoon", and "The Dangerous Summer", is loosely based on his actual experiences, but should not be taken literally as fact. He states himself that fiction is actually "truer" if it is not bound by the facts of the experiences that serve as its inspiration.
Hemingway's written works sometimes contain conflicting descriptions of the same event. He wrote two rather different accounts, for example, of an encounter with F. Scott Fitzgerald and his French chauffer during a visit to Fitzgerald's home in Maryland in the late 1920's.
"The Green Hills of Africa" is based on his 1930's African experiences. "True at First Light" and the later revised and expanded version, "Under Kilimangaro", are based on his mid 1950's safari. There is an open question as to whether some aspects of the books, his involvement with an African woman during the 1950's safari, for example, are based on reality. No one really knows.
Even Hotchner, who was as close to Hemingway as anyone during the last years of his life, writes that he did not know when details of Hemingway's stories, written or otherwise, were actually true. Hemingway's third wife, Martha Gellhorn, went on at great length about his mythologizing.
The eagles killed in "Old Kite", which may or may not be purely fiction, are golden eagles. In any case, I don't know if it was a Federal crime to kill a golden eagle many years ago when the story is supposed to take place
Hemingway's short novel "Islands in the Stream" published posthumously and later made into a movie starring George C. Scott as Papa depicts him running his boat out of Bimini, one of his favorite haunts in the early years of WWII. His weapon of choice in that movie was a BAR. He is estranged from his sons and wife, but "the boys" come to spend the summer with him there. It's a great insight into the man and also a very good movie.
I lifted a few in Papa's favorite bar there "The Compleat Angler"
George
"Breaker Morant" is by no means a B Movie, it is one of the 100 best movies of all Time !!!!
For Papa books, my Favorites are "The Green Hills of Africa" and "The Old Man and the Sea". And I am not really a Hemingway when it comes to writing. Faulkner and Wolfe had him beat.
Yes it is. I used the term B because I thought it was in Black and White- sure showed the pompous "Sandhurst" Officer Corps mentality of the Brits then. Morant was a Leftenant from Australia- skilled at breaking horses but was just like a junior officer in our Army in WW11- if you didn't come from the "Long Grey Line" you maybe retired a Major- West Pointers fared better, as "Ike", Bradley, Patton, Mark Clark and Doug MacArthur were all "Westies" RHIP--
Thanks George. There's a small M&P bookstore in the burg near our deer hunting camp will look for both the movie and the book you mentioned. Went back to re-read "A Deer For Cholly Dorman" last night- Charles Nicholson, a Southern Gentleman like yourself Sir- he must be a fan of that book as well- he describes Boss Bishop's daughter Dianne Perril Bishop as sitting in a chair with a Springer Spaniel on her lap, reading Hmeingway's "Islands In The Stream". George C. Scott- my kind of actor. Patton, yes indeed, but my favorite- a Black and White B movie "The List of Adrian Messenger" a Brit based WW11 espionage film- great stuff.
Later in that book he writes about dispatching a favorite aging horse "Old Kite" in the American West, then leaving the carcass to bait eagles- and later dispatching a Bald Eagle (very protected species by the way) with a .22 Winchester- and running down the wounded bird, crasping it by the legs and smacking its head against a rock- how did he ever get away with a Federal crime like that I wonder?
As stated, it was very likely not a Bald Eagle, but a Golden Eagle which were not protected at that point in time. I don't believe they were protected until sometime in the '60s.
You are right, I went back and re-read it, it was NOT a Bald Eagle- I just assumed all the Eagles were protected- what strikes me as strange, if it was legal then to shoot a Golden Eagle and then sell the feathers to the area Indians (as EH apparently did) why use a .22 and then run a wounded one down and grap its legs-- I'd sooner go 15 rounds as a sparring partner for Mike Tyson on a day when he is really pissed off, not just moderately pissed off.
"Patton" . . . when Omar Bradley saw that movie, he was said to have remarked that he wasn't sure whether he was watching George Scott or George Patton. High tribute to an actor, I'd say.
Martha Gellhorn was somewhat miffed with Papa during WWII because she was a REAL reporter (without, of course, his reputation) but had great difficulty getting anywhere near the action. Meanwhile, Papa got to liberate a hotel in Paris.
Jack Hemingway's account of meeting his father's 4th wife is hilarious. It was down in Cuba, and Papa said, "Go down to the pool and meet your new stepmother." So Jack walks up behind her. She's wrapped in a towel. She turns around, and it seems the towel was all she was wearing. "Uh . . . hi, mom!"
I heard he gave a 6,5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer to Castro and also that it's now on display at Hemmingway's Cuban home, which has since been made into a museum.
Yes, Hemmingway's Mann.-Sch. is leaning on the wall in one of the rooms inside his house-museum in Cuba. - Jani
I can't knock Hemingway. He was a great writer. Gellhorn was a great reporter and, I believe, a better person.
King, as usual, has it exactly correct.