Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

[JimKindred]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/19/AR2011011906696.html

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

Wow, good job by the collector tracing it back to MotC after 35 years. This one has a happy ending.

[LWhite64]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

Sometimes it happens we had a mountain howitzer returned to us under mysterious circumstances nearly 30 years after it had been stolen.

Lee

[brown]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

And don't forget the Arkansas cadet howitzer stolen from a park here in Atlanta.

[Matt Woodburn]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

$50K seems pretty high. Most Spiller and Burrs, even marked ones, are selling in the $20K-30K range during 2009-2010. That one would have to be mint to bring that kind of price, and mint would mean little actual Civil War use.

[fortdonelsonrelics]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

Hey Matt - you know how it is. This is the era of American Pickers and Pawn Stars - $50,000.00 sounds better than $20,000.00 - oh and if it fires, you can add another 20% - :)

John Walsh

[Illinois Rebel]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

$50K seems pretty high. Most Spiller and Burrs, even marked ones, are selling in the $20K-30K range during 2009-2010. That one would have to be mint to bring that kind of price, and mint would mean little actual Civil War use.

Hello Matt. Perhaps this one is Identified? There may be provenance driving the value.

Cheers.

Michael Collins

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

Like Matt, I wondered the same thing about the $50K "value." It could be something
based on appraisal for insurance purposes? The only real way to establish a price is
by comparison to similar units recently sold.

[cprljohnivey]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

It belonged to George Washington Rains. Seee this article on CNN. It has a better write up.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/18/tennessee.civil.war.revolver/index.html?iref=allsearch

"The revolver belonged to George Washington Rains, known with older sibling, Gabriel, as one of the "Bomb Brothers" for creating all manner of gunpowder-infused weapons for the Confederacy during the Civil War

Rains, who early in his career did a stint on the faculty of the U.S. Military Academy, survived the war and lived into his 80s, dying in 1898."

[Matt Woodburn]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

An ID'd item by a relatively unknown Confederate should add $1000-2000, so I agree Michael. And even if we considered Rains well known, I wouldn't put more that an additional $5000 on it. Condition would affect the price more than a relitively unknown Confederate.

Craig, I used actual pricing from known sales and listings, so I agree with your method as being most accurate for valuation. I think the $50K was more for the story than insurance valuation.

And John, I cringe when I see some of those things fired and have never heard the value going up because it can be fired. You're in the business, so you may be able to increase the value of your inventory by test firing all your firearms! But I don't think so.

At most for this one, $35K.

[ACo.]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

Sorry, I don't want to be a smart a$$, but discussing what it is actually "worth" in monetary terms is a little silly - it is an historically invaluable item, you can't really put a price on it.

Value it as you like, the museum and their insurance underwriter can too, but after all the gun is not for sale at any price. The value estimate is just a publicity stunt, the gun is worth whatever they want to say so if they want to put a monetary value on it, maybe they should say what they paid for it and say that is what it is worth? The $50,000 is just idle talk.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

That is certainly a valid perspective as well...establishing a value on something which is not for sale is
a little silly. I think the point here is that the $50K figure was exaggerated for shock value by the media.

[Blair]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

This is kind of interesting.

Could the $50 K be an evaluation based on when these items went missing? Or has it been up graded to what the current value is rated at?
These numbers could be very different.

[M.Latham]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

All these comments and no one has yet mentioned this fact.

A dealer in Civil War related artifacts, Mr. Dave Taylor, saw this item, negotiated for it, and settled on a price to be paid for it.

At that point when he realized where it had come from, he did the honest thing and told the seller and helped arranged its return to the MOC.

I daresay this community should appreciate such honesty, and regard for history.

Bully for Dave Taylor.

[fortdonelsonrelics]

Re: Museum recovers $50K Civil War gun stolen in 1975

This is why I made the comment as follows "This is the era of American Pickers and Pawn Stars - $50,000.00 sounds better than $20,000.00". The museum would not have, nor would it have relevant to have established a price for the item. As mentioned in an earlier post, you cannot put a price on the historical relevance - which is the point of view they would have been seeing it from. Mr. Woodburn is dead on in his assesment of the value - the last one I saw sell, sold for $38,000.00 and that was with a 20% buyers premium included.

As to Mr. Latham - you are correct -the real story here is the return of the item. A similar situation occured late last year when two relic dealers successfully were able to return a cannon back to the state of Illinois. There are several relic dealers that do appreciate the artifacts and their historical significance.

John Walsh