Clark Gable Story
 

For some reason I can't directly reply to Scott Janowski's thread on Clark Gable so I'll start another thread.

Recently I had the pleasure of talking to a gentleman in California who at one time owned an A-1 Special 20ga gun owned by either his father or grandfather. His relative was a golf course architect and designed the Rivera and Los Angles Country Clubs. As a gift the LA Country Club gave him the A-1 Special. While talking to him, he mentioned that as a boy, he went shooting with either his father or grandfather, I can't remember which, and watched his relative shoot with Clark Gable, Roy Rogers, Andy Devine, and some other famous people. It was either trap or skeet. He remained in contact with Gable and he purchased one of Gables guns. He told me that he later sold the gun to a dealer in California. This dealer wanted proof that the gun did at one time belong to Gable. This gentleman wrote to Kay Gable, Clark's widow and she verified that fact. I knew I had seen a reference to that. Check out The Parker Story page 647.

Now I don't know if it's the same gun, he may of had more than one. I can tell you that the stock book shows it as a CHE, 20ga, 2 barrel set, not a DHE. The ink stamp in some of the stock books is very faint and in this case, The D in DHE or the C in CHE is very faint. Roy Gunther made the determination that it was a C and wrote that in red ink.

Is this the same gun as in the article Scott posted? Can't really tell but both have a beavertail forend.

If memory serves (here we go:whistle:) at one time Dave Riffle in Fla offered a CHE 20 two bbl set that was reputed to belong to Clark Gable.

Maybe someday either The Hollywood or Gunner's gun that belonged to C.O.B. will note worthy:biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh:

Once, at a Millbrook Vintagers, a gentleman appeared at the PGCA booth with a Clark Gable gun. Maybe Kevin McCormack or Dave Noreen will remember the details. I am a little faint. It was a heck of a gun with serious provenance, as I recall.

Rich, you do have a face for the movies...Horror movies:shock::shock::shock:

This is the 32-inch BHE-Grade 20-gauge that spent time at our PGCA booth at Sandanona a couple of different years. Supposedly bought by Carol for Clark as a Dove gun --

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...2inchright.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...32inchleft.jpg

As I recall it has a shaggy English Sheepdog they owned engraved on the trigger plate.

Clark Gable
 

I don't know if these were Clark Gable's guns, but this was sure his case.

nice.......charlie

My new desktop backround. NICE!

That's a dandy case. What's the provenance on it?

Destry

Gable in 1934 with his Cutts equipped M11

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../333126097.jpg

With John Barrymore skeet shooting in the Hollywood Hills

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../391785140.jpg

Gable gave Carole Lombard a 20g Crown grade Smith as a wedding present in 1939, but in this image from South Dakota they look to have switched guns. Her gun looks to have a Monte Carlo stock? His with gold inlay? One of the Parkers with a BTFE?

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../408907623.jpg

When I lived in Napa, CA people used to talk about watching Gable and Lombard driving a Duzy into town to shoot dove up valley. It was before the huge vineyards of today. Long grass and ancient oaks made fine flora for dove.

That gold-embossed Parker sure looks like a Pachmayer upgrade.





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I guess I shouldn't say this but the case, if it doesn't have solid provinence, may not be legitimate. Anyone can make a Clark Gable name piece and "age" it. I don't believe any gun story without solid provenance. There are folks out there who will fake things to make sales more lucrative. Then the poor sould who bought the piece then thinks he has the real deal and passes on the story to others. Fakery is not good. I guess I shouldn't say this either, but I don't like the fact that Delgrego reworked Parkers and stamped skeet in and skeet out on the barrels. There are a lot of them out there. I am suspect of any Parker skeet gun that was worked on by the Delgrego's. It may be a true factory skeet gun but chances are that it isn't.

Unfortunately there have always been cheats and there will always be cheats. As technology progresses someone will find a way to make something into what they want it to be. My father used to say that if a cheater put as much time into doing it the right way versus the short cut by cheating in the first place the results would be honest and probably take less effort in the long run.

I'm always leery of anything that looks to good for it's age or is a rare find be it high grade small bore Parkers or Winchester M70's esp super grades.

It's a shame what money does to some ,I have even seen a weekend Golf game among friends go south over a quarter a hole and sandies ! :rotf: I have to agree ,when things don't seem right you really have to watch ! A few days ago I was talking to a Gentleman about a 20 Ga. Trojan he took in on consignment with very minimal barrel blue ,chip in the toe of the stock most of the wood finish worn but with a very high percentage of case colors left ! We both agreed something doesn't wash !

So, that rattly old sawed off Belgian made hammer gun at the gun show with the Wells Fargo logo engraved in the buttstock might be a fake?
The seller seemed so sincere.

Grab the gun Todd. Wells Fargo guns are desirable. If the seller was sincere, there is no reason not to believe him :). The worst case of total BS I have ever witnessed was at a Baltimore show years ago. The seller had a destroyed VH on the table that he was trying to sell to some poor soul who seemed to be buying the story. The gun was polished to the extent that the engraving was completely missing and the parts of the frame no longer fit properly. Some idiot sanded the stocks to the point where the wood was much lower than the metal. The buyer said that the gun was special ordered that way from Parker by Mell Ott, the famous baseball player of the 20's. I never interfere with a seller trying to make a sale, but I told the prospective buyer that the story was BS and the gun was a wreck. I said this in front of the seller and got great pleasure in doing so. That seller was totally lacking in integrity.

There's a well known online auction house in the south that's sold enough faked up crap that supposedly belonged to famous people it's reached a point of being comical. The best one was an old worn out Shattuck single shot 10 gauge that had a crudely made brass medallion nailed to the stock that said something about it being won by Capt. Bogardus in a glass ball shooting match in 1897 or some crap.