Interesting stuff. Thanks for the history guys.
Also one of the few times that I’ve heard reference to the Hall rifle. I sold a beautiful Hall rifle to a museum in South Carolina.iirc.
US Dragoons were an elite unit stationed in Fort Scott, Kansas and patrolling the pre-Civil War frontier. They used the Hall's Carbine. The Hall guns were used extensively in the Mexican War and the Civil War.
Interesting.....thanks for your input. I’d never seen nor held a Hall until a Korean War veteran Marine in his 80’s contacted me about buying his collection. I bought everything he had for the price he was asking. He had a cartridge collection that was, in my opinion, a treasure trove of old, original, RARE cartridges. Everything from original Henry cartridges, Billinghurst Requa cartridges, original and oddball 1880’s 45-70 cartridges, 30-03, almost every version of 30-06 military loads including a “specialized” load that was meant for use against dirigibles in the Great War. I’ve got so many different cartridges from the pinfire, to inside primed, to Civil War paper wrapped ball and powder and everything in between but my problem is figuring out how to display it. I’ve always collected cartridges but the collection I bought would be impossible to put together today.
I bought some great things from him like the Hall carbine. I also bought a Johnson with original bayonet and scabbard. The only thing I passed on was a Spencer Carbine which I still kick myself over. It was in good shape but the markings were so faint as to be almost invisible so I reluctantly passed on it. I had already bought a dozen or so of his guns, his extensive cartridge collection and his bayonet and knife collection. The bayonet and knives he had were just as rare and desirable as his firearm collection. Revolutionary war bayonets, WWI and WWII training bayonets made from spring steel and leather wrapped for the 1903 Springfield and Bakelite training bayonet for the Garand. Ross rifle bayonets, 1866 Winchester bayonets, a BIG cleaver for the USMC (US Medical Corps) used for clearing brush to build quick MASH tents not for amputations which is what everyone mistakenly thinks it’s for.
I even bought his dad’s seabag from WWI. His dad was a Marine also and on his seabag he’d drawn a map of his travels throughout Europe during the war. Inside was his original issue gas mask and a few other odds and ends. That old man spent his life collecting that stuff and he wanted it to go to someone who’d appreciate, I assured him that it was. He made some good money from that liquidation sale and he was beyond thrilled with the wad of cash he ended up with. He told me that based on what he paid for everything versus what he sold it for that he made a rough average of 500% profit which was great because his asking prices were ridiculously low. I actually paid him more for some things than what he was asking. At the time I had no idea what a Johnson Automatic (semi) with bayonet and frog was selling for but I figured that it was at least worth the $250 that he was asking. He told me that he thought it had a broken extractor (or something) but I later checked it out thoroughly and realized that it didn’t and it functioned flawlessly. I had a customer that collected Garands, mostly Winchester Garands, and when he found out we had a Johnson he would not stop pestering me to sell it to him. When he got to $3500 with his offer I decided to sell it to the collector.
Thanks for the interesting thread...👍
