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Lt. Gen'l Julian C. Smith. His personal 1911


The Iron Brigade
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The Iron Brigade

http://www.garyhendershott.net/wwII-catalog-2018.php

 

"The Commander of ALL US Marines in the South Pacific during the last year of WWII. Lt. Gen'l Julian C. Smith. His personal 1911 Ithaca .45 caliber with factory Gold Wash in the original box marked 'Deluxe Finish' carved ivory grips in which he carved his name and the "USMC Globe & Anchor Semper Fi". An outstanding commander he took command of the Department of the Pacific in December 1944."

 

 

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I'd say a retirement gift or similar presentation piece...if he carried a gold pistol on campaign I imagine we would have seen documentation of such, Patton's pistols were quite famous...

 

Beautiful and historical piece...but I can't see it fetching that much!!

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Kurt Barickman

Great weapon; pretty sure the photo of the officer listed on the website is NOT Julian Smith but Merritt¨Red¨ Edson.

 

Kurt

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Hmm...

 

IMO the box with this pistol is fake/reproduction.

 

The Ithaca ink stamping on the top of the box was different than what we see here as was the color of ink used, and the actual box used by Ithaca for its pistols was constructed differently, no other company used the style of box that Ithaca did. This box with the gold pistol is like the ones you can buy off of the internet and aged. These repro boxes have been around now for about 20 years or so, so finding one with some age on it is not hard.

 

I know this because I bought a mint Ithaca in the mid 1990s with its numbered box out of the woodwork from the son of a former WW2 Marine. His father had been stationed on Guam and never used the pistol but held onto it and it was passed in to the son..... His story later corroborated itself when I received copies of the Ithaca shipping records, which showed the entire trail of possession from Ithaca to the Naval Supply Depot in Oakland via the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and then showing the particular crate carrying my pistol going on to Guam.

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Here are pics of my old pistol and its box....it was recently sold on gun broker for almost $4700.00....it has not been mine for years and Ive got to say that too many people handle these things and you lose condition, the box was in somewhat better shape when it was mine....granted, it was about 18 years ago, but still.

 

The box halves are two equal-sized pieces with a separate inner frame that is slightly smaller, the top sleeves over the inner frame and it all fits flush on the outside.

 

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Hmmm...I tried surfing around on his website to figure out the provenance for the pistol, but I couldn't find it. If someone else can, I'd love to see it.

 

I did notice that many of the uniforms he's selling are embarrassingly bad put-together pieces.

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Always consider the particular auction house or dealer selling anything. What is that one's reputation? Probably not for open discussion (too much conjecturing and apocryphal story telling), but for any potential bidder or buyer to check out.

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