Stumbled upon an old handgun...

[totoop]

I was doing yard work and was moving some brush into the woods behind my house and I saw something jutting out of the dirt, it turned out to be a handgun. It is fairly small about 6" in length and very rusted but the hammer can still be pulled back (which then moves the trigger forward). above the trigger on the left side of the gun it says "DOC" and below that at the top of the handle there is a "S" which is encircled and rotated sideways a bit. On the right side directly across from the "S" there is a "W" portrayed the same way. Other than that any other marking are far to illegible for me to even take a guess at what they say. I have no idea if this is even a real gun, it is made completely of metal (as the rust indicates ) and feels very solid. I live in the Boston area if that helps, I am searching for any information anybody can offer.

[railman44]

It sounds like it was a Smith & Wesson handgun.  After the elements have rusted it into a hulk, any worth it may have had is gone.  You may want to alert the local authorities to dispose of it.  I doubt the ballistics would still be any good but they can check that out in case it was used in a crime some time back.

[totoop]

That is a good point, even if it is of no use to them they will at least know what to do with it. It is in such poor condition there is no way it could be of any value so otherwise it would just be sitting around my house. I did look at some antique Smith and Wesson and there are some which looked very similar but none with the same hammer.

[Texasbadger]

Drop it into a coffee can full of kerosene to soak, wont hurt anything and I bet you will get some legible marks or logos of the top of the grips and barrel.

[KC]

Sure hope you can do the kerosene dip and find out more.  I think it's fun and exciting to try and figure out!  Let us know!

[KC]

I have hesitated putting this in...but here goes.  At one point in time they made metal replicas of Doc Holiday pistols that would actually work. The grip on this gun brought to mind the look of one that my brother had when we were growing up...it actually worked as a real pistol. I don't recall his saying D O C specifically.)  DOC on the gun may mean something else, but it just kept bringing to mind those old guns. They have an authentic gun on vintageweaponry.com/revolvers.htm, the 6th one down, by Merwin Hulbert that refers to Doc in the info...and the grip resembles that of what I remembered.  I own pistols but am not a collector nor an expert.

Just another venue you can explore!

[totoop]

I looked into the Doc Holliday replica guns and I have found some which look similar, the problem is I have been running into a lot of cheaper replica toy guns (plastic) and very few fully metal replicas. But I certainly believe this could be a step in the right direction to finding out what it is. I just can't find anything with a similar looking hammer though.

[KC]

The guns we had growing up were metal - some cheap - some just like a "real" gun.  Many cap guns were made with bullets (not rolls of caps or plastic inserts that came later!).

Look at this gun at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center's Museum....some similar characteristics
bbhc.org/collections/bbhc/ImageViewer.cfm?object_key=36931&img=phaseone%2F2000.5.34v2.jpg and on page 10 bbhc.org/collections/BBHC/CFM_ObjectPage.cfm?museum=CFM&VarObjectKey=78134

A site you might want to put your pic on for collectors to try and surmise it's origin is ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=803032.

Let us know if you find anything out!

[KC]

Okay this is bugging me....Does the hammer have ridges across across the area for the thumb to grab ahold of instead of a metal protusion sticking out (The hammer spur as it is called)...because my brother reminded m that we had one like that and it was irritating.  Can't find a photo of it anywhere in our old photos or anywhere on the web.

[totoop]

The hammer has what looks like one solid ridge running horizontally across it. There could have been more but what was once there has now been weathered and rusted away, but I can definitely make out one very pronounced ridge. I have never seen a hammer like this one, it is rounded over towards the barrel.

[Texasbadger]

Ive photoshopped and looked at this from every angle and am inclined to believe the cap gun angle, perhaps the curved hammer allowed for the strip of caps?

[totoop]

We have a winner, being a cap gun would certainly make the most sense and would explain its small size. So I did some searching and looked through some antique cap gun databases and I found the most similar looking gun I have ever found. Steven's was one of the few companies who made cap guns before WWII, they made them entirely of cast iron (which would explain the rust). I have not been able to find the exact model but I am almost 100% certain this is a Steven's cap gun. Never mind, as I was writing this post I found the exact cap gun.

Stevens 1923 BULL DOG (what I thought was DOC on the gun is actually DOG)
http://www.nicholscapguns.com/stevens2.htm

to view the larger images and a brief description you have to allow popups.

[KC]

Hooray-Hooray!  Good Job totoop!  Now that I see the box/name, I remember that is who made our capgun!  The same style of hammers too!

So, some poor kid lost their gun in the woods.  Shame. (He may want to find out who! That will be another mystery! Ha!)

I sure wish we still had ours...(my mom probably ousted it! - I will have to talk with her about that today!)

Good sleuthing!