How Were They Shipped?

[smoothshooter]

Once again it’s time for me to ask my yearly question that stumps the panel. So here we go again:

Let’s say I run a hardware store, trading post, or some kind of place that would sell guns and/ or related merchandise in the percussion era. A customer comes in looking for a Colt or Remington percussion revolver. I have none in stock. The customer asks me to order him one, which I gladly do. I might even order a couple of extra ones.

When the gun arrives weeks or months later, how is it packaged?
(I am not talking about special order guns in a wooden case with accessories).

In a factory cardboard box with logo?
In a little wooden crate padded with straw?
Based on past years’ responses, not a single known example ( NOT ONE ! ) of a percussion revolver shipping container exists to this day, except for possibly a few shipping crates used for bulk shipments on Army or Navy contracts.
Same for the unmentionable Colt suppository model that came next, at least through the 1890’s.

Am I the only person who finds it rather odd that none are known to have survived, and that even among serious Colt collectors no one ever seems to have given this any real thought? I know this because I have asked these questions many times at gun and collector’s shows, and almost invariably the guys I have talked to about this seem a little embarrassed that it never occurred to them to research this and find an answer.

 

[Phil Coffins]

I’ve never given it a thought but I’m confident it wasn’t in cardboard!

 

[ord sgt]

Corrugated cardboard had not been perfected at the time. Thin sheets of paperboard were in use but could not contain heavy items during shipment. Everything traveled by wagon and had poor suspension. That would leave the wood boxes to be able to handle any type of weight to be transported over long distances.

 

[Sam squanch]

Probably shipped in a heavy wooden box, wrapped in heavy greased paper. Then the packaging materials went into the stove!

 

[appalichian hunter]

SWAG, I would think the pistols were individually wrapped perhaps well greased in a perhaps canvas sort of package then maybe placed say 6-12 in a wooden crate of some type maybe packed with straw or some other like material. Seems like being manufactured in the east and shipped westward more than likely by wagon it would be a rough ride for them so they would be protected from the trip and the elements, I have seen shipping crates sorta like this for shipping long arms so as the guess for something similar for side arms. Just speculating on a interesting question.

 

[user 48679]

 

[appalichian hunter]

Is that a pistol box or a box for ammunition.

 

[user 48679]

IDK

 

[BeoBill]

I think it could be for either, depending on its size.

 

[smoothshooter]

Corrugated cardboard had not been perfected at the time. Thin sheets of paperboard were in use but could not contain heavy items during shipment. Everything traveled by wagon and had poor suspension. That would leave the wood boxes to be able to handle any type of weight to be transported over long distances.

I figured that about the corrugated cardboard, but it is unbelievable that not a single example exists.
If an authentic one turned up, I wonder what it would be worth?

 

[smoothshooter]

SWAG, I would think the pistols were individually wrapped perhaps well greased in a perhaps canvas sort of package then maybe placed say 6-12 in a wooden crate of some type maybe packed with straw or some other like material. Seems like being manufactured in the east and shipped westward more than likely by wagon it would be a rough ride for them so they would be protected from the trip and the elements, I have seen shipping crates sorta like this for shipping long arms so as the guess for something similar for side arms. Just speculating on a interesting question.

Your guess on packaging agrees with mine.

 

[Cruzatte]

Wood crates, packed with wood shavings, the packing peanuts of the era, from Hartford to Pittsburgh via rail, down the Ohio River in a steam boat, over to St. Louis, and depending on it's final destination down the Mississippi and up the Arkansas, or up the Missouri, then perhaps up the Kansas River, or the Platte River. The railroad put an end to wagon traffic to Santa Fe by 1880.

 

[FishDFly]

Hold on, I'll ask the wife, she was around back then.

 

[Bill Poole]

A riverboat carrying consumer goods & hardward up the missouri river before the civil war sank and was entombed in mud preserving everything.

a documentary called "Cornfield Shipwreck" was produced, very interesting
https://curiositystream.com/video/3045
there is a museum in Kansas
https://www.1856.com/
so, if any of you are close to that museum, go in and ask if they know! then report back to us.

Poole

 

[Whitworth]

Wood crates, packed with wood shavings, the packing peanuts of the era, from Hartford to Pittsburgh via rail, down the Ohio River in a steam boat, over to St. Louis, and depending on it's final destination down the Mississippi and up the Arkansas, or up the Missouri, then perhaps up the Kansas River, or the Platte River. The railroad put an end to wagon traffic to Santa Fe by 1880.

Well greased then wrapped in greased paper or cloth and placed in an individual wooden or pressed paper (pasteboard) box prior to shipping as above. Loose revolvers in wood shavings would eventually bang against each during shipment unless the crate was compartmentalized.
Just a theory but maybe the high acid content of the wood fibers in the pasteboard would have caused the boxes to breakdown and eventually fall apart over time like old newspapers, hence their total disappearance regardless of care. JMHO

 

[Coot]

A riverboat carrying consumer goods & hardward up the missouri river before the civil war sank and was entombed in mud preserving everything.

a documentary called "Cornfield Shipwreck" was produced, very interesting
https://curiositystream.com/video/3045
there is a museum in Kansas
https://www.1856.com/
so, if any of you are close to that museum, go in and ask if they know! then report back to us.

Poole

Due to local internal strife at the time, boats carrying any arms were likely to be robbed of them by one faction or the other. As a result, the Arabia (the steamboat dug up & now a museum in Kansas City, MO) was not carrying any cargo arms. (A lot of everything else tho) - it is a great window into mid 19th c America.

 

[KEDSFAN]

Due to local internal strife at the time, boats carrying any arms were likely to be robbed of them by one faction or the other. As a result, the Arabia (the steamboat dug up & now a museum in Kansas City, MO) was not carrying any cargo arms. (A lot of everything else tho) - it is a great window into mid 19th c America.

Theft of guns has gone on forever. In the 1970's I worked at a sporting goods store. I remember that if I had to send an Ithaca shotgun back to the factory I had to mark the package... IG Corp.

 

[SOLANCO]

SWAG, I would think the pistols were individually wrapped perhaps well greased in a perhaps canvas sort of package then maybe placed say 6-12 in a wooden crate of some type maybe packed with straw or some other like material. Seems like being manufactured in the east and shipped westward more than likely by wagon it would be a rough ride for them so they would be protected from the trip and the elements, I have seen shipping crates sorta like this for shipping long arms so as the guess for something similar for side arms. Just speculating on a interesting question.

I would say shipped the greater part of the distance by rail. Then horse and wagon if your store is not on a rail line. Either you went and got it at the station or somebody does wagon freight from the station.
Still needs a wooden crate though.

 

[smoothshooter]

I would say shipped the greater part of the distance by rail. Then horse and wagon if your store is not on a rail line. Either you went and got it at the station or somebody does wagon freight from the station.
Still needs a wooden crate though.

It looks like there would be some sort of written correspondence with retail establishments, or something, that would have information about packing and shipping methods.
I know the big fire that destroyed most of the Colt factory destroyed a lot of stuff. Don’t know about how extensive the destruction of any company records or written instructions for internal use was.

 

[FishDFly]

I know that you can send Colt the number of a pistol and they can tell you when it was made, etc. Someone should send them a note and ask them how they were shipped.