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on the matted concave solid rib which is marked “PARKER BROTHERS, MAKERS, MERIDEN, CONN. VULCAN STEEL. ” standard markings, and chambers measured at 2 3/4 inches with single extractor.
The barrels are fitted to a casehardened boxlock action featuring double triggers, an automatic tang mounted safety, and light zig-zag border engraving. The gun is mounted with a lightly figured and multi-point checkered forend with Deeley latch release as well as a pistol grip stock with Parker grip cap, silver inscription shield marked “K.R.” for Kermit Roosevelt, and a red rubber recoil pad with black spacer. Barrel and stock measurements (R/L): bore diameter nine inches from the breech .620/.619 inches; choke constriction .002/.027 inches; minimum wall thickness .040/.038 inches; 1 3/4 inch drop at comb; 2 1/2 inch drop at heel; 13 7/8 inch length of pull; weight 6 lbs. 2 oz.
The silver drinking set includes a 4 gill Tiffany &
Co. flask with the Roosevelt family crest and “QUI- PLANTAVIT-CURABIT” motto one side and “KERMIT ROOSEVELT/APRIL 10, 1925/’BON VOYAGE AND GOOD HUNTING’” over five signatures, a cup with Asian calligraphic hallmarks on the bottom an engraved scene of a moose drinking at a bar with
a bear for a bar tender over “MR. K. ROOSEVELT”, a jigger marked “K” and “H”, and an “ASPREY/LONDON” pocket flask inscribed “K.R” on one side and “Major/ Kermit Roosevelt/From/H.C.P./10-10-39” on
the other.
Kermit Roosevelt was very close with his father and shared many of his interests, including hunting, adventure, reading, and writing. Like his father, he had poor health as a boy but overcame it though he
402 remained quiet and often melancholy throughout
In “The Long Trail” and “The Happy Hunting- Grounds,” Kermit wrote about his father’s troubles using a shotgun due to his eyesight but noted
that he used a shotgun as a boy and young man and that “He continually encouraged us to learn to shoot with the gun” and that when he was eight he had done some bird shooting with his father and brother at the Great South Bay. He notes “I had a venerable 12-bore pin-fire gun, which was the first weapon father ever owned,” and didn’t have much success with “rust bore” as the family called it. The use of shotguns for collecting specimens and meat is also noted in both of the books along with others by Kermit. In a letter to Kermit on May 22, 1907, T.R. wrote, “I will write to Mr. Hughitt about the prairie chicken shooting and find the day that it opens. My belief is that you would not get either black bear
or timber wolf if you were able to go after them, and that the prairie chicken shooting will give you just the experience that you ought to have with the shotgun. I have always been sorry I did not learn
to shoot with the shotgun, because there is so
little chance to do anything with the rifle, and the chance grows less year by year. Your loving father, TR.” In a follow-up letter he wrote, “When you come back I will go over with you the whole hunting trip question. I strongly advise a new double-barreled shotgun. My impression would be that if the time
is ripe this would be a first-class year to try for
the chicken shooting; then I will later be able to arrange some regular big game hunting for you. Perhaps when I get thru being President we will be able to take a trip together to Newfoundland, or south Yellowstone if the elk hunting is good.” While Roosevelt had downplayed his use of shotguns, he
Many of the other surviving firearms, including other pieces from the Mellon Collection, are now off-market in institutional collections, such as TR’s Nimschke engraved Frontier Six Shooter Single Action Army and Winchester Model 1876 carbine
in The Autry Museum of the American West, and various other pieces are located at various national parks and historic sites connected to Theodore Roosevelt such as the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site which previously displayed many of the firearms from Theodore Roosevelt’s arms collection, including the Hawken rifle featured in Lot 1287.
The shotgun is one of 4,988 Parker Bros. VH grades in this configuration and was built in 1903 with blued steel barrels with a single nickel bead sight
much of his life and appears to have suffered from some of the same mental health problems as other members of his family. The shotgun dates to when he would have been around 14 years old towards the end of his father’s first term as president and would be an appropriate gun for a young hunter. Theodore Roosevelt had been given a Lefaucheux double barrel shotgun as his first firearm in 1872 by his own father when he was the same age, so
it seems likely this shotgun was a gift to Kermit from the president. When his older brother Ted was about to turn 14 in 1901, Roosevelt wrote to John Burroughs informing him that Ted had killed his first buck providing further evidence of the age of 14 being an important milestone for the Roosevelts.