What Looms Up

Well, we sold our loom:




It is going to a good home, a lady who really knows her looms and already owns- and uses- several.

More on Mr. and Mrs. W.A. Harrod

Chris here.

Im my previous post I described piecing together the story behind an ambrotype image in Jen's collection. I have found a little bit more about the Mr. William A. Harrod and his wife Sarah M. "Sallie" Brown(e).

From this website I have learned that in April of 1863 Sallie gave birth to William L. Harrod. Considering that William A. Harrod and Sallie were wed in July of 1862 they wasted little time in starting a family.

After William A.'s death in 1863, Sallie and little William went to live with her grandparents (her parents evidently being deceased). Sallie remarried in 1871 to one George J. James with whom she had a daughter, Cora, the following year. Like many of the people in Sallie's life, George James appears to not have been exceptionally long-lived as on the 1880 census "Sarah M. James" is listed as the head of household and a widower. She last turns up on the 1900 census living with her daughter and son-in-law with the occupation of "lecturer."

Her son with with William A. Harrod, William L. Harrod, moved to California with his family and William L.'s son, William Newell Harrod, died in the Golden State 1950.

William N. married in 1924, but I have yet to find and record of children from that marriage... (why do I suspect there is yet another William Harrod?) of course, on-line geneaology searches are hampered as records of living people and census data after 1930 are not indexed in order to prevent identity theft.

It is amazing the stories one little image can unlock sometimes.

To be continued...

Putting a Name to a Face

Chris here.

Jen and I have been doing work with images again. Jen is working on an on-line archive of high-rez scans and digital photos of the images in our personal collection and past/present items in the store's inventory.

While sorting through the image files on the computer, I came across one of Jen's favorite images:



This dapper gentleman is a captured in a 1/9th plate ambrotype. His clothing & the fact that the image is an ambro place it squarely around 1860.

Where the story gets interesting is that about a month ago Jen and I were preparing for a lecture we were doing on studying 19th century photographs. Jen was admiring the image, in its gutta-percha case, and I asked if she had ever taken it out of the case (as every once in a great while the case holds a surprise).

Well, we took it out of the case and lo and behold a little piece of newsprint fell out of the back of the case. One one side of the newsprint was a mourning poem:

"Beloved One, I Would Not Wish.
---
"Beloved one, I would not wish
To woo thee back to earth,
For thorns unnumbered and untold,
Spring daily into birth;
And if I had the magic power
to till each frozen vein,
I would not, love, recall thee back
To this dark world again.
For well I know with angel hosts
Where pain and sorrow cease,
Thou art now reveling in the bliss
Of endless love and peace.

"I mourn thee, love, but yet I feel,
That thou art with me still;
Thy spirit, though to me unseen,
Is guarding me from ill;
And in my dreams I hear a voice
Strike on my listening ear,
And deem within my visions that
Thy angel form is near;
Then, oh, beloved one, I’ll strive
To meet thee on that shore
Where Sorrow’s footsteps are unknown,
And Death shall come no more"

On the other side of the paper was part of the text from a speech President Lincoln gave to Congress on March 6, 1862. (Click here for the full text of that speech)

On the inside of the case, behind the image, was penciled the following:

"Mr. & Mrs. W.A. Harrod
Austin, Ind.
Sallie Browne
My Darling Husband"

Jen and I were shocked by all this, which clearly showed that Mr. W.A. Harrod had died before his wife, during the Civil War period, and she obviously mourned his loss. But who were Mr. & Mrs. Harrod... and where did "Sallie Browne" fall into the mix? How did Harrod die?

I never thought I'd answer any of these questions, but today I finally got around to doing a little sleuthing, and it turns out that one William A. Harrod was born in Indiana on February 12, 1835, was a carpenter in 1860 per the census, married one Sarah M. "Sallie" Brown on July 6, 1862 in the same county in Indiana and died on September 12, 1863 at the age of 28.

What's wild is that his death is listed as occuring "South of Austin... Indiana" while:

"Returning home on top of a Box Car in a Soldier train, when he got up to look around and was knocked off by a low bridge"

So was Harrod a soldier? I have not found a military service record for him yet. There is no source for this reference to his death, but the information I have gleaned is from a geneaology site and there is a link to contact the family member who put the info together.

Sad story. "Sallie Brown(e)" was widowed just a year after their marriage. Who knows, my wife and I may have been the first people to lay eyes on the pencil inscription and the mourning poem since Mrs. Harrod placed it there almost 150 years ago.

Curiouser and curioser.

Oh, if you are curious, here is the video of the talk on images, including our discovery of Mr. Harrod's "secret:"

Another Reason Not to Take our Parking Spot

I have not posted one of these in awhile... this could be the note you find on your windshield if you leave your car in our designated parking spot:

Have pity on me, I still drive an AMC (NO its not a Pacer).

More on CW Swords

Well, the 1850-pattern Horstmann Staff & Field Officer's sword sold.

Now if we can just get that McElroy to move. Albaugh did not illustrate it in his 1960 "Confederate Edged Weapons," but he does describe a similar model:

"A particularly handsome cavalry sabre is in private collection. In appearance it is very much like those made by Thomas, Griswold & Co., with ornamented branches and guard. The blade is finely etched, its decorations include the firm’s name, address, floral designs and “C.S.” The scabbard is of brass, engraved with crossed Confederate flags, etc."

The only difference is the scabbard on Old Truck's McElroy is steel (albeit with a brass soldered lap seam). I wonder if the sword Albaugh saw actually had an all-brass scabbard or it was just brass soldered and Albaugh made a mistake when he wrote the book? Doesn't really matter either way- many Confederate manufacturers used whatever materials they had. If they had steel, they used steel. If steel was in short supply they used as much brass as they could get away with.

In Defense of Old Truck's McElroy

Chris here (again):

Earlier today I thought I'd make one simple post decrying the inability of the "expert" on Pawn Stars to authenticate the McElroy sword on that show and the similar difficulty Jen and I had when conferring with a authority on Confederate militaria regarding the McElroy we have in our shop.

Well, I am now on my third post wrestling with this thorny issue.

In my last post I set up a framework to type antique weapons against:

Good:
-Original weapon with all-original components
-Reproduction weapons clearly labelled as such

Bad:
-Original weapon altered with components it was never associated with to increase its value
-Reproduction altered and aged to resemble original antique with intent to deceive

Ugly (grey area):
-Original weapon with components either original or reproduction added to replace missing components that the piece initially had
-Reproduction with components added or removed for reenacting purposes ("de-farbed")

So how does Old Truck's McElroy weigh in?

On the "good" category: it has no repro marks so it can't be an honest repro. It could be all original, however.

On the "bad" category: it has no sign of alteration. Theoretically it could be a fake made from scratch, although there would have been a lot of effort involved.

On the "ugly" category: it has no sign that anything was replaced (other than perhaps the leather wrist-strap, more on that below). The sword is definitely not a run-of the mill repro either (more on that below).

So what are we left with?

Good:
-Original weapon with all-original components. Possible
-Reproduction weapons clearly labelled as such. NO

Bad:
-Original weapon altered with components it was never associated with to increase its value Very unlikely
-Reproduction altered and aged to resemble original antique with intent to deceive. Possible but not likely

Ugly (grey area):
-Original weapon with components either original or reproduction added to replace missing components that the piece initially had. Very unlikely
-Reproduction with components added or removed for reenacting purposes ("de-farbed"). Possible but not likely

OK so our sword is possibly an original and possibly, but not likely, a modified repro (either faked or de-farbed) or an out-and-out from-the-ground-up-fake.

The saying goes that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and, apparently, authenticating a Confederate sword is an extraordinary claim.

So what extraordinary evidence can I bring to the table to show that the McElroy at Old Truck Antiques is the real McCoy, er McElroy, that is, and that it is most unlikely that it is a fake?

Well, I suppose I can start by comparing the shop's McElroy to its evil twin- a direct copy of it that is being manufactured in India for Legendary Arms, Inc. Yours for only $199, on sale from $299! http://www.legendaryarms.com/noname1.html

Like I said, it is the evil twin of the McElroy we have at the shop. The natural impulse is to wonder if somebody got ahold of one of these Legendary Arms McElroys and faked it up and the result is what we have in the shop. Well, let's see about that-

Digging around on the 'net I found a few more images of the Legendary Arms McElroy. Take a look at the etching of the "CS" on the blade:

Now, Here's the CS on the McElroy @ Old Truck Antiques:

Notice how the style of the "S" is different, the Old Truck McElroy "S" has a much more pronounced split in it. Also notice how the etching on the Old Truck sword is more free-hand and less regular. Especially pay attention to how DEEP the etching is on the Old Truck McElroy- that is because it's blade has been deeply acid-etched whereas the mass-produced Legendary Arms sword has been photo-etched.

In William A. Albaugh III's "Confederate Edged Weapons" New York, 1960, Albaugh provides the following primary source account of the etching work at McElroy's factory:

"AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT of an operation always carries more weight than a secondhand observation. In my files is a letter from Bridges Smith, who, at the time of its writing in May, 1922, was the Judge of the Bibb County (Ga.) Juvenile Court, Macon, but who in the 1860s was an operative of the C.S. Macon Arsenal. Says Judge Smith:

"... W. J. McElroy & Co., tinsmiths turned over their large factory for the purpose of making canteens, and later by reason of having some skilled men in their employ, began to make swords. In the course of time, this shop was turning out some of the finest weapons of this class, beautifully ornamented by the then process of dipping the blade in melted wax and chasing the designs with a steel pointed instrument, and then pouring acid all over and letting it “eat” into the blade. This may have been very crude compared to modern methods, but we used to regard the product as almost perfection.

"At any rate, I am satisfied that these were the first swords made and worn by the officers of the Confederate Army. This factory continued until the war ended and the swords were made into plowshares, as the saying is. The government had no sword-making establishment of its own in Macon. "

Here is a comparison of the McElroy "signatures," one from Legendary Arms:

And the one on the Old Truck Antiques McElroy:

Again, notice the difference in the script & the depth of the etching.

In the discussion with the authority on Confederate militaria he was of the opinion that the etching did not look right. Compared to other Civil War swords that may be true, but in reading the letter from Judge Smith quoted above it can be seen that McElroy had a distinctive manner of etching.

So it is safe to conclude that the McElroy at Old Truck Antiques is NOT a modified Legendary Arms McElroy. As far as this commentator knows, Legendary Arms is the only company having a reproduction McElroy saber made. Besides the physical differences, another reason to conclude that the Old Truck McElroy is not a modified Legendary Arms is that the consigner who has placed it with us has had it in his collection for over seven years. I have a 2003 catalog for Legendary Arms and at that time they did not offer the McElroy reproduction.

So, having ruled out the possibility that the McElroy in our shop is a modified reproduction, what are its chances of being a fake from the ground up?

Well, in addition to the Confederate miltiaria authority, Jen and I have also spoken to a gentleman who has done extensive weapons research and served as a film consultant on period arms. He was of the opinion that if it was a fake the workmanship was so demanding as to make it extremely unlikely that anyone would attempt it.

Let's look at what's involved- forging the blade, casting the highly-ornamented brass guard, turning a wooden grip, making a steel scabbard out of sheet-metal and soldering the lap seam with brass.

Oh, and acid etching the blade and scabbard. One delightful quirk about the McElroy at Old Truck Antiques is that the brass solder actually fills some parts of the etched design. Either it is because the incomplete scabbard was etched before it was soldered or because the acid used for the etching could not eat through the brass.

Well, I think I have written myself out on this topic (for now). In the meantime, here are a few links with images of ID'd McElroy foot officer's swords. Note the variation in the engraving. There were obviously several folks doing the etching work at McElroy's during the war.

http://www.oldsouthantiques.com/os943p3.htm

(A sword handed down in the McElroy family)

http://content.liveauctioneers.com/item/46144

(Same sword with different pics on an auction website)

http://www.oldsouthantiques.com/os1378p1.htm

(Sword carried by two CS officers who died in battle)

http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/civilwarantiques/mcelroy.html

(Sword brought home by an Ohio soldier)

The Wonderful World of Fake and Reproduction Weapons

Chris here.

In my last post I whined impotently because in a recent episode of the history channel's Pawn Stars a "weapons expert" could not authenticate a McElroy sword brought on the show. This scenario mirrored an experience Jen and I recently had when a noted expert on Confederate militaria could not authenticate the McElroy we have on consignment at Old Truck Antiques.

In this post I shall attempt to set up a framework for authenticating weapons. Here goes.

Confederate weapons have been one of the hottest things going in military antiques for several decades. That said a thriving "industry" (if you will) of fake Confederate weapons has cropped up as the unscrupulous cash in on the prices people are willing to pay for Confederate guns, knives and swords.

Complicating the issue further is that during the past half-century Civil War reenacting has grown right alongside the collecting market and plenty of good, bad and indifferent reproductions have been made of clothing, equipment and weapons for the reenactor crowd.

There is nothing inherently wrong or unscrupulous about making reproductions of original pieces, assuming that the reproductions are labeled as such. It gets hinky when somebody takes a repro and removes or adds markings which would otherwise distinguish the repro from the original and then artificially ages the piece with the intent of deceiving collectors.

In short, here is the good, bad and ugly of historic weapons & reproductions:

Good:
-Original weapon with all-original components
-Reproduction weapons clearly labelled as such

Bad:
-Original weapon altered with components it was never associated with to increase its value
-Reproduction altered and aged to resemble original antique with intent to deceive

Ugly (grey area):
-Original weapon with components either original or reproduction added to replace missing components that the piece initially had
-Reproduction with components added or removed for reenacting purposes ("de-farbed")

The "good" category is pretty self-explanatory. For the "bad" group, examples of altered originals are things like "common" US swords from the Civil War era that fakers add Confederate manufacture marks to. This process takes a fairly common sword that is worth hundreds of dollars and changes it to something that could be worth tens of thousands. Because a real antique is modified, to a certain extent it makes detecting the faking very difficult as real signs of age and wear will be present. On the other hand, northern weapons are fairly well documented and their are distinctive factors that northern weapons often have that Confederate weapons GENERALLY do not, so one should be able to tell pretty quick if it is legitimately CSA or just dolled-up USA (of course I said GENERALLY, there are always exceptions that cause no end of confusion and wonderment). That Sean fellow really dropped the ball on Pawn Stars when he stated basically the same thing that I said above about modified original swords having scurrilous maker's marks and decoration added to them, but one look at the sword on Pawn Stars and you could tell it was Confederate to the core- the blade only had one fuller. Union swords GENERALLY (I hate saying that) have two fullers (fullers are the grooves in sword blades), a deeper secondary one inside the first toward the spine of the blade. There is no way to grind out or hide a second fuller... the fact that the Pawn Stars sword had only a single fuller meant it was almost certainly either a real CS sword or a total fake (not a modified antique). Sean did not say that it was a total fake. If it was a real Confederate sword, why would anyone add etching to it? Even plain Confederate swords are valued at $5,000-$10,000! Risking ruining an original by etching it would be just plain stupid and at best would only double the value (yeah, I know that people do stupider things, but figuring out how to etch a blade and then age it again would take some smarts... anybody smart enough to do that would probably be smart enough not to mess with an original CS sword.

The other "bad" category I had listed are reproductions which are made to deceive. There are two sub-sets of this category. The first sub-type are total fakes from the ground up that somebody has cobbled together in his/her garage or basement. Usually these are fairly easy to spot as the fake looks like it has been created on a workbench by somebody who is not a professional manufacturer- even the most crude of Confederate weapons tend to have more fit and finish than these home made impersonators. The authenticity of the homemade total fakes also tends to suffer because the faker, in addition to being an amature manufacturer, is normally also an amature historian and often does not have ready access to an original to copy from or the ability to research the fake well enough. The second sub-type of deceptive reproductions are mass-produced copies of weapons meant for the reenactor market that have had the distinctive features that separate them from originals added or removed and then been artificially aged. Most reproduction swords come from India and carry an "India" stamped on the blade. New they cost between one and several hundred dollars. Fakers frequently grind off the "India" stamp and then use a letter punch set to mark the blade with manufacturer and/or inspector marks. Then for good measure the blade is dipped in gasoline and left to dry, causing an instant patina. Using abrasives, wear may be given to part of the sword to make it "look old" and used. These fakes can normally be spotted by looking for tool marks where the "India" (or whatever) stamp was removed, looking to see if the letter punches used were in a modern font or one correct for the Civil War period, and looking closely at the patina on the blade and the wear on the sword as a whole. Also, there are hallmarks of some reproductions that are not found on originals. Bad repros stick out like a sore thumb. Anybody who tries to buy a $15 Chinese stainless steel wonder with an acorn nut securing the tang to the pommel and make that look like an original should have their head examined. Both the total fakes and the modified repros often boast excessive and frequently crude (both mechanically and linguistically) engraving of personal names, unit designations, and ludicrous mottoes (like "death to yankees" or something equally profound).

Then there is the "ugly" category. The first type, original weapons that have missing parts replaced, is a fact of life. Several years ago I decided to learn everything there was to know about the US 1855 pattern rifle musket. What I found is that very reputable antique dealers had no problem selling down the river muskets made up of every possible combination of parts from the 1850's to the 1870's. The problem here is that the Ordnance Dept.'s use of interchangeable parts meant that the locks, stocks, and barrels of the 1855-1864 rifle muskets and the early trapdoor rifles could often be interchanged along with other hardware such as ramrods, barrel bands and screws. When trying to research 1855 rifles on the internet storefronts of militaria dealers I found literally dozens of weird combinations of cast-off parts being sold as an "original" weapon. With swords it is a little more difficult to achieve this result. Most scabbards only fit the specific type of sword it was meant to fit for, so it is difficult (but not impossible) to join a mis-matched sword & scabbard. This may have been what happened with the Pawn Stars McElroy as its original scabbard had been replaced with one of varnished wood. Some CSA swords did in fact have wooden scabbards but not anything like the Pawn Stars one- I'd argue the legitimacy of the Pawn Stars sword on those grounds alone- nobody would fake something like that as it would not fool anyone! My guess would be that at some point the leather rotted out and either the veteran or one of his descendants crafted the wooden replacement. It is also technically possible to mix a sword's blade, guard and grip... but dismounting a Civil War Sword is not easy as it means grinding out the flattened end of the tang from the pommel and the soldering or welding it in place once the sword is reassembled. Normally tell-tale signs of this work can be detected.

The other "ugly" types of Civil War weapons are those that have been "de-farbed." "farb" is a Civil War reenactor term of unknown origin that means something or someone that is inauthentic. For many reenactors, looking at a "Made in India" stamp is understandably frustrating. Many reenactors, and/or the vendors who supply them, "de-farb" reproduction items to make them look more like the originals. This normally involves removing the marks of the reproduction's manufacturer and sometimes replacing them with the marks of original manufacturers. "De-farbing" can also involve replacing less authentic parts of the modern made reproduction with either original or reproduction components that more closely match the original. Nobody is intending to deceive, except to present a greater aura of authenticity on the battlefield. Most reputable vendors if they do really good reproductions or "de-farbing" of same will use manufacture marks that are not real- normally their own name or initials, which a little research would show to any interested party to not be a true manufacturer of the period. The other thing that most often separates "de-farbed" repros from fakes is that reenactors want their repros to look NEW as they are portraying the time-period when the weapons were recently issued or purchased. A de-farbed repro should not show any signs of extreme age- i.e. leather should still be pliable, rust to a minimum, no patina.