doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ithaca Fans--A very recent capture.

This is such a great gun we need to bring it back to the top. So much for the old nay sayers that use to post here about butt ugly NIDs!!

The boys at Ithaca seemed to do a good job of getting their guns into the hands of these gun writer vets of The Great War. Capt Paul A. Curtis --



we know in addition to the gun mentioned here got an NID No. 4E Super-Ten in 1930.

1 LT Chas. Askins --



we know in addition to the gun here, probably his No. 4 Flues got a No. 5E 16-gauge NID and of course the famous No. 4E+ Magnum-Ten serial number 500000.

Then upping the ante Capt. E.C. Crossman --



gets this No. 7E NID. Ahhh.... Those were the days!!

They were indeed!! Thank you for an informative post. As you know I have Askins' 4E Flues and now Capt. Crossman's 7E. When I hold these relics and shoot them, I feel a spiritual kinship with these former owners. It is almost like they are here with me. Sounds kooky I know but it is what it is. I once owned a fully optioned 20-gauge 5E that the Captian bought for his wife Blanche. I foolishly sold it but what a sweet gun that was!!! I am an old man now and someday these treasures will have a new custodian--until that time, they and the spirit of their original owners are securely and comfortably nestled with their peers.

Beautiful gun, Walt! And neat history from Researcher on military vet/gun writer owners. Expect some who know a bit about Paul Curtis will wonder--as one did with Hemingway--whether he might have used that Ithaca when he chose to take his own life.

After singing the praises of getting Ithaca Gun Co. to build him his light Super-Ten and the new Remington Kleanbore shells in the February 1931 issue of Field & Stream, Capt. Curtis had the 10-gauge up for sale in the October 1934 issue of The American Rifleman --



The Captain's obit from the New York Times says "bullet" --

That was a good price! Bobby

Gun writers are such whores. I'll bet that Curtis never paid a dime for that gun and sold it for whatever it would bring. British Army? That's a new one on me, but I'm not really a student of Curtis. He was a friend of Nash Buckingham, but Nash was a bit of a scavenger himself.

Pretty unusual for gun writers to be given guns. We are often offered attractive prices, but outright gifts are decidedly uncommon. I'm still waiting for Purdey or H&H to come through with a gift, because even an attractive price from them would be out of my league.

The late Captain Paul Arthur Curtis offed himself in a NYC apartment during the last years of WW2- with his 1911-A1 Colt in .38 Super- one shot to the right temple- Bada Bing--Hemingway used a 12 bore Webley & Scott live bird gun in July 1961, in Ketchum, Idaho- put both muzzles in his mouth and tripped the front trigger, ventilating the roof of his mouth and spraying what was left of his cerebal cortex all over the foyer- Mary Welsh Hemingway, his fourth and last Frau- must have tossed her cookies big time when she saw the blood and gore all over the wall and ceiling- Suicide ran in the Hemingway clan, Don Ernesto's father, Dr. Clarence Edward Hemingway, shot himself in the head a la Paul Curtis- in Dec 1928- with his father's Colt Navy cap and ball pistol- after losing his ass in bad Florida real estate schemes- left a note, which neither Paul Curtis or Don Ernesto did-this was right about the era when Ernest became known as a force majeur in the literati world of the Roaring 20's- with his success in the sale of his novel "A Farewell to Arms"- his Mother, Grace Hemingway, a equal [censored] to Gertrude Stein, according to Hemingway, sent him the gun with a rather cryptic note about how "Ernest would want to have his Grandfather's Civil War pistol-not one word about the loss of her husband-

Two of my three all-time gunning heroes- Why would a Harvard grad and distinguished Southern Gentleman like the late Theopolis Nash Buckingham have to "scavenge" when his father was a wealthy Memphis banker and his wife, Irma Witt Jones, came from old line Southern aristocracy and brought a nice dowry to their marriage? I am sure Nash was gicen guns- like the 12 gauge M21's and Model 50 Winchesters, due to his friendship with the late John Olin- and I respect and Southern gentleman who care enough for the well-being of their Ladies, in his situation with Irma in her later years. You, Oh Murph Da Surf, dis-honor Nash's name and reputation as the most Shootin'ist Gent'man ever--scavenge- my ass!!

Hey, maybe a set of Purdey snap caps. For what shooting magazines do you write, if I may make so bold? My favorite urrent "sporting writer" is Silvio Calabi-solid research, and he does not suffer fools graciously either.