Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show Colts

The period of time for the American West was in fact very short lived, that small colourful episode which opened after the civil war ended in 1865 and gave us such a mass of colourful heroes would surely not have been so recognized and highlighted without Edward Z C Judson who went west intrigued with the stories and adventure and observed the period in time and was probably the first person to form some kind of record all be it a little over coloured. Under the pseudonym Ned Buntline he began to write the now famed Dime Novels which rapidly became volume sellers over the English speaking world and very soon taken up by the 'New York Weekly' with incredible appetite. The involvement of the media fuelled the hunger for the adventure recorded within its pages and created a further torrent of paperbacks. It was these early publications that in themselves led to the earliest of the Wild West Shows.

William Fredrick Cody was just another of many Indian Scouts when he met Judson/Buntline in 1869 and was swept away with Buntline's now prolific pen as 'Buffalo Bill Nemesis of the Marauding Red Skin and Defender of Womanhood'. This Iowa unschooled farm boy's fame spread and when in 1872 a production was staged at the 'Bowery Theatre' in New York based on several of Buntline's dime novels and entitled 'Buffalo Bill the King of the Bordermen'. William Fredrick Cody took his first audience bow on stage as Buffalo Bill.

After a thin rewrite of this script and with Cody dressed to star 'The Production Scouts of the Plains' was staged and included in the performance was Texas Jack Omohundro and Wild Bill Hickok. Although this stage production was a washout and Hickok couldn't stomach any of it, nevertheless it had proven a market for a Wild West Show and further proven that the name 'Buffalo Bill' with its now huge readership thanks to the Dime Novels was the way forward.

Time was moving fast and as this was the age of invention the new frontier was quickly becoming the Old West. Pony Express was over almost as soon as it began with the coming of the telegraph, stagecoach lines gave way to steam locomotives. The number of cowhands was vastly reduced owing to the new barbed wire and the reduction in size of range areas. It was all of this and more which provided Cody now Buffalo Bill with a wide choice of players and stories to present his versions of the Dime Novels as a Wild West Show.

Among those gathered by Cody was John Y Nelson better known of course as Johnny Y Nelson a former cowhand who had become shotgun guard on the Deadwood Stage for Wells Fargo. This was a stage line carrying a terrific amount of fame and legend owing to the gold strike in the black hills of Dakota in the early 1870s. Several guards and drivers for this stage line themselves becoming very famous in following years one of which was Wyatt Earp. It was a considerable coo for Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show to obtain the original stagecoach from this famed Wells Fargo line. It not only being one of the last stagecoach lines left in the west but also the vast amount of notoriety with even a popular song about it.

Undoubtedly Buffalo Bill thought the addition to his Wild West Show of the Deadwood Stage and its original guard was of some considerable merit and to this end those on show with it should be attired to suit. For its now famed guard John Y Nelson a pair of fabulous Colts were the order of the day.

Chambered for the ·44-40 round most popular with anyone carrying a Winchester which also took exactly the same cartridge. Virtually full cover engraved as a pair to display the embodiment of the characters and the Wild West Show.

One pistol has the likeness of John Y Nelson upon its standing breach and traditional leaf pattern scrolling over its revolving cylinder whilst the matching pistol has the likeness of Buffalo Bill upon its standing breach and small scenes taken from the Wild West Show on each of its revolving cylinder chambers. Both pistols carry the name of John Y Nelson down the back strap of the pistol grips.

Interestingly enough these pistols probably never fired a shot in anger and would most likely discharge only blank cartridges during a performance of the now enormously popular Wild West Show. Not that these pistols weren't capable of live shots these guns were most definitely the real thing.

The popularity of the Wild West Show grew to the extent it not only showed throughout the Americas but also crossed the oceans and played to the crowned heads of Europe including her majesty Queen Victoria in London. These pistols gracing all of those performances.

In 1906 the Wild West Show returned to England for a second show but by this time sadly much of its popularity had failed it and it is at this point the story of these magnificent pistols becomes clouded with some mystery. There are those who say that John Y Nelson used them to pay gambling debts, others that he pawned them and could not redeem them and even suggestions that they were stolen from the Wild West Show. The full truth of the matter may never be known, what is known however is that the Wild West Show returned to America without them and they were lost until 1963 when they were rediscovered in Sheffield, England, the location of the Wild West Shows last performance in Britain by my close friend and fellow antique gun collector Mr Jack L Goldthorpe who bought them and gave the pair pride of place in his gun collection of most choice antique firearms. It was at this point in time when this exceptional pair of Colt revolvers with their amazing history was photographed by a leading professional photographer on the instructions of Mr Goldthorpe.