By 1961 I had six or eight different guns and I cannot now remember in what order they arrived and who I obtained them from. About 1962 I stopped buying Yankee. Deringers and still have thirty odd such pieces. They were too easy to get.
By this time I began to hear rumors of other makers that were not listed in any of the gun books and I drifted along for a few years until about 1965 or 1966 gathering together perhaps a total of fifteen or eighteen of the guns.
My appetite was whetted in 1963 when Theodore Dexter, a prominent gun dealer of that time, offered for sale a pair of Louis Hoffman, Vicksburg, Mississippi derringers in awfully nice condition. So, another pair had turned up that I had never heard of nor had anyone ever seen before. One of these guns is now in Mississippi near Vicksburg and the other is in a prominent collection in California and someday I would like to get these two back together and perhaps in my possession. All of this information made me real warm towards expanding the collection of Southern Derringers especially after I saw an O’Dell, a Linde and a Merriman. Slowing somewhat in my collection of military long guns before 1890, my collection of Kentucky Rifles, Colt Pistols, Confederate Revolvers, Confederate Veterans Reunion Badges and certain other items, I began to concentrate more on the Southern Derringers until today I have over fifty of these guns.
Five guns exist that I do not have. They are A. J. Millspaugh, Shreveport, H. G. Newcomb, Natchez, J. A. Schaffer, Vicksburg, Louis Hoffman, Vicksburg and Holyoake-Lownes & Co. One other, F. Schumann is authenticated by newspaper accounts of that period as having made derringers but not a single specimen has ever turned up according to my collector friends. Of great importance though is a derringer barrel, octagon in shape, marked “F. Schumann, Memphis, Tennessee” that has never been assembled or made into a gun. This specimen is in Dixie’s collection and was found 30 years ago in an old Memphis gun repair store.
By no means have I completed my collection. I do look forward to years of hunting for additional pieces, adding more information to my papers and if enough of you good readers are interested in this book so that I can dispose of the first 1000 copies, I will look forward to the time when it can be reprinted with additional information.
HYDE & GOODRICH
#2 The vast majority of Hyde and Goodrich deringers are usually of a bulky undesirable style that I do not like. This one follows that example. Caliber is .410. Has German silver furniture and with ramrod. The barrel markings on #2, #255, and #284 use the same single stamp.
The barrel is marked in three lines as follows:
Mand for
Hyde and Goodrich
Agents, N. O.