Held an interesting piece...

[AIRASSAULT]

... of U.S. history in my hands last night. I was over at a friends house yesterday evening having a celebratory beer with a fella that had just killed a nice doe. We were shooting the bull and my friend decides to open up his huge gun safe. Out of the 30 or so guns in the safe, I immediately noticed and picked up a really old single-shot shotgun with a sawed off barrel. My friend, said " you think that gun is cool? look at the side of the stock." I turned the shotgun on its side, and carved into the left side of it was the name "Cole Younger" of the Jesse James/Younger brothers gang. My friend said it was apparently left behind in one of the gang's shootouts, and it had been handed down in his family. I wondered how much that gun would be worth.. He said he didn't know, and that he has never tried finding out because he said it would be too hard to authenticate... None the less, It was cool to hold in my hands, cock the hammer back and look down the same barrel of an old infamous outlaw.

 

[Shovelbuck]

That is cool! I believe there are a few old photos around. Maybe one has him holding it.

 

[deeraddict]

wow very cool

 

[Central Iowa]

Is it illegal to have in posession a sawed off shotgun? If you can own one there is a tv show on Iowa public television that tracks down history on items like this that would be really interesting.

 

[Shovelbuck]

Is it illegal to have in posession a sawed off shotgun?

Only if the barrel is less than 18 inches.

 

[Shovelbuck]

I love this kind of stuff.....................................................

 

[Central Iowa]

History Detectives is the show on PBS. Here is a link where you can submit your mystery.
http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/about/submit.html

 

[zvholk]

That is way cool, I suppose he wont let you post a picture of it.

 

[sethgade280]

Man that is cool. History is so frickin cool and interesting.

I know a guy who has a letter written by president lincoln thanking him for allowing the dead cival war soldiers a resting place on his land. Everytime I see it chills run down my spine.

 

[AIRASSAULT]

I don't have any pics of it, but, in one of the pics that Shovelbuck posted, the guy on our left sitting down as looking at the picture looks exactly like the gun. I don't know which one is Cole though.

 

[Shovelbuck]

There's a ton of photos of Cole on the web and his looks really changed through the years. I looked at a bunch and think the guy on the left in that photo is Cole. But I'm not 100 % certain.

 

[THA4]

this is UBER cool Billy!!