I’ve been involved in some recent conversations about two things that are sort of connected.
Apparently, the word for the 250th anniversary of something is “Semiquincentennial”. Wikipedia, the source of all vaguely accurate knowledge, also says “Sestercentennial” is acceptable. Also: “Quarter Millennium”, and in the context of the upcoming anniversary, “America250”. “America250” sounds kind of silly and undignified to me. “America! 250! With purchase of an America of equal or greater value!”
I was feeling like nobody gives a diddly squat about the Semiquincentennial. I haven’t seen people talking about it, or announced plans for a big celebration, or any commemorative items. I’m old enough to (somewhat) remember the run-up to the Bicentennial. I may even have some Bicentennial quarters somewhere.
It turns out that there’s actually a federally chartered “non-partisan” planning committee, the “United States Semiquincentennial Commission“, which was spun up in 2016. It also turns out that President Trump has created “The White House Task Force on Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday“, aka “Task Force 250”. I like “Task Force 250”. “Task Force 250, engage the guns on Mount Suribachi.”
(We watched “Sands of Iwo Jima” over the weekend. I like it, but I would not say it was one of John Wayne’s best films.)
And, of course, the NYT has to micturate all over the idea.
I wonder if we’re going to see any commemorative guns for the 250th anniversary. And I don’t mean guns like the various “Trump 2025” and “47” guns you see around. I mean some really classy commemoratives, of the kind gun makers used to issue in the old days. And speaking of the old days…
For some reason, Mike and I were talking about my Smith and Wesson Model 544, the “Texas Wagon Train Commemorative”, for the 150th anniversary of Texas independence. While we were talking, I got to wondering: did any other manufacturers issue Texas Sesquicentennial guns? Surely there was a commemorative Winchester, right? Winchester issued more commemoratives than Carter had little liver pills.
Oh, if only I had some reference work on Winchester commemorative guns. Oh, wait! I do!
Volume One of the Trolard books says that Winchester was going to produce a full-length rifle, a carbine, and a cased set with both the rifle and carbine as well as a Bowie knife. The first volume came out in 1985, so Mr. Trolard was writing ahead of actual release. (He does have photos of the guns, which I’m guessing were factory supplied.)
Then it gets weird, and frankly unclear to me. There’s a reference early on in the second volume to “the unfortunate event with the termination of the production for the Texas Sesquicentennial program”, but not much more detail than that. At least some Texas Sesquicentennial guns made it out of the factory, as you can find auctions for them online. U.S Repeating Arms Company (the parent company of Winchester at the time) shut down the Winchester commemoratives program in 1987. They contracted with Cherry’s Sporting Goods to “design, create and market” commemoratives in 1989. This is about the same time that USRA went bankrupt and was bought by Fabrique Nationale Herstal.
(Some of the Texas Sesquicentennial guns were re-purposed as Larry Bird commemoratives, per Trolard. Really, I’m not making this up. There were Larry Bird commemorative Winchesters sold through “Larry Bird’s Boston Connection” with serial numbers that started with “TSR”. “More commemoratives than Carter had little liver pills” indeed.)
And what about Colt? I’m not as up on Colts, and don’t have as many Colt references as I’d like. But it seems like Colt did a Texas Sesquicentennial commemorative Single Action Army. All the ones I have seen for sale so far have ivory grips. Here’s one example from GunBroker.
Mike the Musicologist also turned up a Colt 1860 Army Texas Sesquicentennial commemorative. The listing he found claims they are very rare: here’s one listed and sold by Collectors Firearms.
The Texas Sesquicentennial Colts are listed in the online Blue Book of Gun Values, but that’s weird, too: the site shows a “Colt 1985 Texas 150th Sesquicentennial SAA Premier Model” that looks like the SAA with ivory grips, and a “Colt 1985 Texas 150th Sesquicentennial SAA Standard Model” that looks like an 1860 Army, not a SAA.
There is also a “Texas Sam Houston 150th Sesquicentennial Deluxe U.S. Model 1847 Walker .44 Caliber Blackpowder Cap & Ball Revolver” listed on GunBroker right now, but that seems to be more of a Sam Houston commemorative than a Texas Sesquicentennial one. Also, it doesn’t look like it was produced by Colt, but made by the “United States Historical Society” using an Uberti Walker reproduction.
I kind of think it would be fun to have a collection of all the Texas Sesquicentennial guns, at least the official manufacturer produced ones. But I don’t think I want to scratch that itch right away…
…that Single Action Army with ivory grips does look pretty, though.
If any of my readers are Colt people, and can fill in some of the blanks on Colt commemoratives, or can point to a good reference work, please drop a comment here.
