Danny has just put up some pictures of a Haviland & Gunn (Morse) pistol from the Beeman collection, which is being auctioned by the Rock Island Co. (https://forum.vintageairgunsgallery....tol/#post-8797)

Seeing these pictures reminded me of an amusing story about this gun, which may be apocryphal, but which I believe is true. If anyone can confirm the details l would be very grateful.

Robert Beeman was extremely keen to add one of these pistols to his collection, but for some reason he had never managed to nail one, even though they are not massively rare in the USA. When this particular one came up for auction in the great Myron Kasok airgun auction in 2003, he was determined to get it. So much so, he somehow ended up bidding against himself, and he finally won it at the massive hammer price of $6,900 ! Other examples have come up for sale since, and generally fetch much lower, more realistic prices. For example in the 2018 Ingvar Alm auction, a lot of two nice examples sold for $1265.

I doubt Robert was too bothered about the hit to his finances though.