I was checking out this article at Garden & Gun:

Make Mine a Double

In it, the author mentions this store about Emile Flues:

"Flues moved to Buffalo, New York, and became widely known for fine engraving and inlays of gold and silver. Buffalo Bill bought one of his pistols, as did the cowboy actor Tom Mix. In 1922, Haile Selassie, the future emperor of Ethiopia, the Lion of Judah, visited Flues to pick up a gun he had commissioned at a cost of three thousand dollars. "

Is there any truth to this at all? It smells very funky to me.

First of all, it appears Haile Selassie didn't travel to the U.S. until the early 1950s:

Haile Selassie in America

Second, I think this is the author's source for this info:

Emile Flues info from Ancestry.com

Older remembers may recognize the person who posted the info on Ancestry.com. He was quite the story teller.

So does anyone know if there's some truth to the Flues-Selassie story?

OWD

He knew a lot of information about Emil Flues. I wouldn't discount it right off the bat.

The part about Silassie could very well be legit.
I have a picture in my files that I copied from the Interweb that shows Silassie, his wife, and another man posing in their royal dress with various rifles, Silassie has a large bore bolt action rifle and his wife has a very nice big bore double rifle.

I would second Mr. Treblig's comments about Mr. Chambers. He was no friend of mine but I respected his knowledge of Emile Flues.

I agree Cary.

He was no friend of a lot of people on this board.

In 1922, Haile Selassie would have been Crown Prince and Regent--head of government--of Ethiopia. His movement and travels would have been public record, and he would have traveled, even unofficially, with fanfare and first class accommodations. This account of his foreign travels during his regency says nothing about a trip to the USA in the 20s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie#Travel_abroad

The idea of HS traveling to upstate New York in a freight car under segregated conditions to pick up a shotgun with no record outside a family tradition strikes me as a bit far-fetched. He was not a guy known for his humility. On the other hand, he had the wealth and opportunity to buy the best guns in the world. It's perfectly plausible that he ordered a gun from Flues and sent someone to fetch it.

Urban myth. I would more expect he would have ordered from Londons best not an obscure experimental maker located in the backwaters of upstate New York. HS had not only an ego that was oversized but he would have been expected to keep up appearances for domestic considerations. His status was very much up in the air st this time so leaving the country was unlikely. Once out of the country the Queen of Kings would not have allowed him to return. She had forced out his cousin who had been desiganated as the next King of Kings by the late King of Kings. He was deemed too progressive by the conservatives. She was much more consertive and much more religious than HS was and had firm backing of a majority of the royal line and ruling class.

Looks like April - May 2017

OWD

Robert could be prickly but I interacted with him a bunch on the old DarneUSA forum and always found him to be polite and a fountain of information. I never had a problem with him.

And I think his information was pretty good. At least on the subjects I covered with him...primarily French guns.

His information in regards to Darne guns sucked. He was of the opinion that any sliding breech gun was a Darne product, including Charlins. He posted early Francisque Darne catalogs and patents and claimed they were Regis Darne items. He had a restocked clone that he was convinced was a valuable and rare Darne gun. He couldn't read French, but, put photos of French gun catalogs out claiming they proved something they mostly didn't.
He also claimed, like Steve Martin, in "The Jerk", to have been born a poor black child. He played that for a time, also.
He was a jerk.

If he knew something about anything, you couldn't prove it to me from here.

I think the notion of the king of the Rastafarians leaving Ethiopia, circa 1922, seems far fetched, at best. The fact that old Chamber Pot believed it happened (I wish I could remember who gave him that title, to give them proper credit) only proves irony can indeed smell just like BS.


Best,
Ted

I corresponded with Robert a bit.
I think he was black.
Or maybe of mixed heritage.

He certainly felt cheated by somebody.

My interest pertained to Flues guns, because all the late Emil Flues stuff happened near where I live.

If such a firearm was actually produced and delivered, there should be enough evidence remaining to illucidate.

That's how I remember it also. He had an enormous amount of information about Emil Flues but when he decided he was also an expert on French guns he got his hat handed to him.

Since he was proven wrong and not infallible in his own mind he got mad and ran away.

When he ran off he deleted many of his most helpful posts. He said something like he didn't want to give away his research for free. That kind of left a poor taste in my mouth, at least...Geo

Although I never saw him, he claimed to be black, and then changed the story. When asked why he said he was black to begin with, he didn't have a good answer.

That stuck with me.

Anyway, if he knew something of Emil Flues, and Flues guns, so be it. Somebody has to, I guess. But, I'll run with Dewey's thoughts on them.

Best,
Ted

God, this board is all about giving away information or sharing it with others. Oscar was one of the best about sharing what he had learned. Klunkmeister was very helpful in several Smith project I was working on. John Mann freely helped me when I was building my gun room with what he had learned when he built his. Bill Wise shared so much information about HAL, Lindner gun that I had the hots for them for several years. Still do and will never miss the chance to look at one. The late Toni was an inspiration the way he dove into working on guns, doing what he could himself and then finding fellows in the trade to help him when he could not. The list goes on and on for me. Yes a few of them were a bit sarcastic or worse did not tolerate fools or BS artist well. To me that just made them like family all the more.

Well, yea, but you can pick your friends, and not your family. So, pick guys that give you straight up answers as your friends.

Robert left about the time I pointed out the address on his Fransisque Darne catalogs didn't match with the address of Regis Darne's factory. He argued for weeks that it simply wasn't possible that there could be two Darnes. Me pointing out that the French words "Fils Ainé" on his F. Darne catalog meant "eldest son" in English wouldn't sway him.


Best,
Ted

It would be hard to keep making a shotgun for a king under wraps in most small towns in 1920. Small town papers took great pride in publishing interesting local news.

Seems odd, no matter the degree of local racism, to not have any reporting on that gun.

Like most "urban myths", there's a grain of truth in the story somewhere.

Note, also, that Pinckney never claimed the cabbage car story was true ........ but that it is folklore. Read........ embellishment. Folklore is always handy for that when the facts are just too boring. And there's no shortage of it down in the lowcountry where Pinckney lives.

SRH

My wife's Great grandfather was the personal physician to our state's then Governor.
He couldn't walk his dog in the morning without it being reported in local news the next day.
The world was smaller, and the minutiae of daily life was often reported on. All kinds of little things.
So, a visit by a King? Seems odd.
Now if the Flues' family has any info, that'd be different.

I did learn some interesting things from Robert, and I'm grateful for that.

Truth can be stranger than fiction, especially in the lowcountry:
On the western edge of the lowcountry lies the town of Jesup, Georgia. It spawned Roscoe Dean one of the most controversial politicians the state of Georgia ever endured, a character whose career could have been the template for Boss Hogg. Roscoe ran for governor and his “secret” masterplan for raising campaign funds centered around opening the coast of Georgia to drug smugglers. Roscoe was no master criminal or Walter White. When the Feds found out about his crooked scheme, a GBI agent posed as the representative of the marijuana cartels. At this time, smugglers utilized local shrimpers to off load tons of bales of marijuana in remote parts of the coast. The transfers of the weed to the shrimp boats was in international waters from mother ships. In order to show the “good faith” of the cartel, the agent showed Roscoe the good faith bribe money of $125,000.00. In reality, it was only $25,000, but the agent would go into the next room and bring out the $25,000 five times in different bags. As I said, Roscoe was no master criminal. At the motel meeting, Roscoe brought in an electronic bug detector in a brief case. As the room where transactions took place was audio and video “bugged”, the agent calmly took the detector from Roscoe’s hands, and told him it needed to be turned “on” before it could work, and the agent promptly turned it off. Winding back to the Silasse thread and visitors from Africa to the U.S. : During the campaign, Rosoce visited home and brought with him an Atlanta prostitute. He had instructed her not to say a word when introduced to friends and family. He introduced her as an “Egyptian Princess” who couldn’t speak a word of English. Roscoe ended up serving time in a Federal minimum security prison and only recently passed away. A friend who prosecuted Roscoe Dean told me highlights of the evidence and named his dog after Dean. My late Aussie was named Roscoe by a former owner. There were other hilarious incidents recorded, but not used as evidence, including hanky panky in a restaurant booth between the "Egyptian Princess" and Roscoe. http://www.myajc.com/news/state--regiona...H20mgikdLRFVYM/

An absolutely over the top Flues appeared in the hands of a collector several years ago. I don't know if pictures ever reached the internet, but I have had the gun in hand, and it was definitely not a catalog offering. Anyone remember this gun? I know the name of the one time owner, but don't want to mention it.

Ted 6000...is that you? You're so full of woodpecker eggs!!!...the truth is right in front of you yet you wont accept it...When I asked about Selassie's golden gun many readers simply ASSUMED I was black (because Selassie was black) and I saw no need to correct them when my goal was research about Flues...

Thank you canvasback for your kind words...most DarneUSA readers know that I won't post anything without empirical or written evidence to back it up (if need be)...Emil Flues was quoted in a depression era newspaper about the high cost of the golden gun to the people of Ethiopia...A picture of that article is posted at the Iroquois Arms Collectors website (though not complete text) in an article "Best Friend of the Hunter" see( https://sites.google.com/a/iroquoisarmscollectors.org/iroquoisarmscollectors/home/emil-flues-buffalo ) ...Selassie passed through Buffalo many times on his way to Oberlin College in Ohio (to visit his boys I assume) yet some would have everyone thinking it's some urban myth..

welcome back Robert, missed you

Emil seemed quite active up to the time of his death. I have a Lindner Daly hammer 10 marked. E. Flues Bay City. Always wondered if he owned it or worked on it.