Customer Reviews

Samuel Colt: Arms, Art, and Invention (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art)

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This large-format, full color book is a must-have for gun collectors... especially those who study Colt firearms. The photographs are clear and large. The text is comprehensive and well-written. An excellent book!

I should be honest with you right from the start and tell you that I am not a great fan of "coffee table books." For the most part, once they have been scanned, they are placed at first on a coffee table - thus their name - then slowly migrate to a shelf under the table where they collect dust, and finally end up either on an out of the way books shelf, closet or storage area. For the most part, the information found in these sorts of books is pretty superficial, and while the photographs, art or illustrations in many are stunning, very little over all useful information is imparted.

This is not the case with the volume being reviewed here! Now I realize that the subject matter is of most important to gun collectors, enthusiasts and their ilk, but it would be a big mistake to state that these folks (I am one of them) would be the only group to be interested. There is much history; or nations history, to be learned between the covers of this work! It, the book, is also truly a work of art in that the Colt Fire Arm Company paid as much attention to the aesthetic as aspect of the arms they manufactured as they did to technical perfection.

This work features items found in the Wadsworth Atheneum and includes not only a wonderfully written history of Samuel Colt and some of the weapons he was associated with, but also many of the paintings and artwork found in Wadsworth. Also included in this work are nearly fifty additional firearms originally belonging to Samuel Colt and are now located in the Museum of Connecticut History, Hartford.

This work is oversized and printed on a very high quality paper. The photographs are large, extremely clear and in full color. The specifications and history of each firearm featured is included in a concisely written text which accompany each picture. For the collector, this information is invaluable. To be quite honest, collectors of guns, those particularly interested in Colts and lovers of history, can spend hours drooling over this book.

Along with the wonderful photographs we have a very nicely written history of Samuel Colt and the Colt Manufacturing Company. The authors have dealt extensively with Colt's marketing techniques; an aspect which helped make this firm one of the best know in the United States, and to a certain extent, world wide.

On a personal note: As I go though this work I run into many, many very old friends. As I grew up, I had a great uncle who had one of the most extensive privately owned collections of Colt Firearms in the country. During the Great Depression years, he was one of those people who was lucky enough not to have lost everything he owned and to be frank, was quite well off. He spent many years simply driving throughout the Midwest, stopping at farms and villages and asking people if they had and old guns they would like to sell. Of course many did and my uncle was able to purchase literally hundreds of guns at a fraction of their value of today. As a boy growing up, I would spend hours in his offices going through box after box of these guns. I actually liked the old guy; enjoyed his company, and we got along well and I learned much from him, but I have to admit that I did my fair share of sucking up to him in hopes of his eventually throwing a few Colt crumbs my way. Alas, I should have spent more time sucking up to his second wife who, upon his death, gave the entire vast collection away to a museum, which in retrospect, was the right thing to do as more people can now enjoy them. But still and all.......

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

I met Herbert Houze during an exhibition of Colt Firearms at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT. I was fortunate enough to be working at this fine museum and stood guard to this incredible collection. Mr. Houze in the master authority on Samuel Colt and his legacy and I recommend this book to any person interested in guns. The Editor Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, is the Chief Curator and Krieble Curator of American Painting and Sculpture at the museum. A must have volume for any library.