Colt 1851 Navy Revolver
date: label: date made
content: late 1850s
name: label: user
content: Hart, William S.
label: maker
content: Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Colt 1851 Navy Revolver model pistol formerly owned by William S. Hart and used as a prop in many of his silent Western motion pictures. The 36 caliber gun, serial number 168712, was probably manufactured in the late 1850s. The revolver has a wood handle attached to a metal barrel and revolving chamber. The chamber is engraved with a scene showing the Texan-Mexican naval Battle of Campeche in May 1843. The gun rests on a green velvet mount in a wooden display case with a glass window. A plaque inside of the case reads "Owned by Wm. S. Hart and used in all early day picture work. Saw service in 'Wagon Tracks, Testing Block, White Oak,' and other pictures."
label: Description
content: Gatewood W. Dunston (1908-October 18, 1956) was a motion picture projectionist and later, a collector and scholar of the history of motion picture technology who bequeathed his important collection to the National Museum of American History.
label: Description
content: Dunston worked the projection booth at the Granby and Lowe’s Theaters in Norfolk, Virginia, where he lived until his death. He was a friend of the early Western star William S. Hart, and obtained a number of Hart films, posters and even a pistol used by the actor in his films. It appears that Dunston began seriously researching and collecting movie cameras, projectors and memorabilia in the early 1940s, through correspondence with film historians Merritt Crawford and Terry Ramsaye, early projectionist Francis Doublier and a number of movie personalities and machine manufacturers. He was disheartened by the deaths of many motion picture pioneers in the 1930s and 40s, and by his perception that the history of motion picture technology was fading into obscurity. Dunston collected 35mm and 16mm copies of notable silent films, old projectors and cameras, glass theater slides, a small number of mutoscope items and editing equipment as well as stereo views and optical toys. As his health deteriorated in the early 1950s, he was forced to sell off many of his films, which were on nitrate and posed a fire hazard, and he wrote a will that stipulated his collection be left to the Smithsonian National Museum’s Section of Photography, now NMAH’s Photographic History Collection.
label: Description
content: The Dunston accession, number 212314, included 864 items, comprised primarily of 294 theater slides, 162 stereo views, 150 lantern slides, 157 films, 59 early projectors, 6 editing machines, 6 posters, over 100 photographs and a mutoscope reel. Additionally, Dunston left his correspondence relating to the collection, which offers a look at this formative period in the historiography of motion pictures. The films, many of which were on nitrate, were transferred to the Library of Congress in the 1960s, but the remainder of the material was cataloged and is found at numbers 4994-5099 in the Photographic History Collection. The Dunston collection at the National Museum of American History remains one of the most complete and important showing the evolution and history of the motion picture projector, as well as the motion picture industry and art.
label: Description
content: This finding aid is one in a series documenting the PHC’s Early Cinema Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000018]. The cinema-related objects cover the range of technological innovation and popular appeal that defined the motion picture industry during a period in which it became the premier form of mass communication in American life, roughly 1885-1930. See also finding aids for Early Sound Cinema [COLL.PHOTOS.000040], Early Color Cinema [COLL.PHOTOS.000039], Early Cinema Film and Ephemera [COLL.PHOTOS.000038] and Early Cinema Equipment [COLL.PHOTOS.000037].
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Connecticut, Hartford
label: depicted in engraving
content: Mexico: Campeche, Campeche
topic: label: used in
content: Motion Pictures
label: Subject
content: West
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Photographic History
label: See more items in
content: Popular Entertainment
label: See more items in
content: Photo History Collection
label: See more items in
content: Gatewood W. Dunston Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PG.005043
label: catalog number
content: 5043
label: accession number
content: 212314
objectType: label: Object Name
content: revolver
label: Object Name
content: gun
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (handle material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (barrel, chamber, and trigger material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (case material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (case material)
label: Physical Description
content: velvet (case material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (lock and key material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (plaque material)
label: Measurements
content: gun barrel: 7 1/2 in; 19.05 cm
label: Measurements
content: gun overall: 5 in x 13 in x 1 1/2 in; 12.7 cm x 33.02 cm x 3.81 cm
label: Measurements
content: case overall: 3 3/4 in x 17 1/4 in x 8 3/4 in; 9.525 cm x 43.815 cm x 22.225 cm