Hoped for Van Gogh Suicide gun sells

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indy1919a4

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Color me skeptical but it seems that there's not enough provenance, as collectors say, to firmly back up that story. Reading that story made me think of the famous Loch Ness monster in Scotland and other things like that. There's no solid, genuine proof but a lot of publicity that gets the public stirred up. Seems that anything connected to a famous person like Van Gogh can command big money and things sometimes pop up that are "supposedly" connected to celebrities. I wouldn't bid on that because there's too many gray area and not enough solid evidence.
 
The last link said "the gun THOUGHT to have been used. Imagine paying $182,000 and them finding out later"oops" that wasn't it after all.
Yikes! That would suck!

However, anyone who spends $182,000 on a rusted up, non functioning, maybe suicide gun that some painter used is probably not hurting for money, and buys whatever they want. I'm guessing the purchaser owns several real Van Gs.
 
Auction house - “This could be the gun that killed Van Gogh”

The bid winner as they hand over an envelope - “This could have a check inside for the right amount”

Imagine finding out after you bought that gun (I doubt anyone on THR would be that naive) that the gun was not the gun that Van Gogh used.

I guess it’s a gamble for the collector. They wouldn’t want to “miss out” if it is the right gun.

I have to wonder...why would you gamble on a gun that an unstable man used to slowly kill himself? A man who cut his own ear off after finding out his brother was getting engaged and might stop sending the only money he had to sustain himself. Van Gogh’s brother sent Vincent 100 Francs a month, his only income.
Then the dude, Van Gogh, takes his ear and gives it to a maid he lives that works at a brothel as a token of his affection.
Van Gogh died of a gunshot wound to the stomach that he sustained two days before. Some say it was self inflicted. Some say it wasn’t but he said that he did it to himself while in his deathbed.
Heck, the guy must have been sad and depressed indeed. He couldn’t even put himself out of his own misery properly.

Now I know more about Vincent Van Gogh than I ever cared to know. The interwebs are a wonder, no? ;)
 
Man, I'm sorry I missed that sale. I'm sure there are people that would have given their left ear for that gun.;)
Funniest comment I've read in ages.

Off topic - I'm having radiation treatments done to my left ear and have jokingly suggested the Van Gogh treatment a couple of times. Had to explain it each time... sigh! I wish they'd start teaching this stuff again.
 
According to the initial account, Van Gogh had become depressed, borrowed the firearm from an innkeeper, took it out into a field, shot himself with it, returned to the inn, went to his room, and died a day and a half later.

Another account, based on testimony recently unearthed, is that two boys found the thing and shot the artist accidentally. That version is supported by forensic psychoanalytical study of the artist's final works that failed to note any evidence of depression.

The pinfire revolver is so called because each cartridge had its own firing pin.

That made the cartridges extremely dangerous to handle, and partly because each cartridge had a hole in it, and partly because the guns were not very robust at all, the power was extremely limited.

I examined a fair-sized collection of them in a home in Wilmette, IL, in the mid 1960s.

Thousands upon thousands of them were made in Belgium, and also in Austria and Italy. Several armies used the larger ones. The Confederacy bought thousands.

That little 7mm? "You'll shoot your eye out!"

If I had been an innkeeper then, I would have preferred a dagger.

The smallest Lefaucheaux pinfire revolvers had a bore of 2mm.

A pinfire revolver figured in Rudyard Kipling's story The Light that Failed. Dick and Maisie liked to practice target shooting with one.

It had nothing to do with Dick's becoming blind, but somehow I have associated pinfire revolvers with blindness ever since I read the book in high school.

Funny, how that can happen.

Personally, I would not want to handle a loaded black-powder pinfire cartridge of any size.

Like Van Gogh, Dick was an artist.
 
1st you doubting Thomases are all correct.. I like you was laughing and pointing fingers at this thing saying no way. When 1st read of this, Thought it would never even hit the minimum and be pulled..

But it did sell, so why??

One reason right or wrong no one is going to find another gun anymore, so this is it warts and all.

This area of France is a tourist Mecca for Van Gogh fans.

It was found in the 1960s when there was a little more faith and not so much information out there. Heck today in the gun world when someone buys
an M1 Garand anymore you want to know the Time & date it was made and if Charlie was at work that day and if he was, what did he have for lunch.

Now if you or I found this gun in a field and claimed it was the suicide gun we would be laughed at and called funny names in french. But this went into ownership by the family that owned the Auberge Ravoux hotel. This is the hotel that Van Gogh lived at, died at and got the gun from. This hotel has been for years a Van Gogh museum & destination.

So the gun got provenance from the fact of its 50+ year association with that hotel and those owners. Its been shown there for years as "The Gun".

Its been now accept enough to be shown at legit museums as "The Gun".

So if this gun is or is not the actual suicide gun, enough people by faith have accept that it is. And now there will never be another.

Lets not say this is something that the French would only do. Look how many 100s of Jessie James guns have been "found" & sold by that great little marketing genius mother James.
 
The last link said "the gun THOUGHT to have been used. Imagine paying $182,000 and them finding out later"oops" that wasn't it after all.
In the Number 10 Saloon in Deadwood there used to be a big glass case over the front door, if I remember right. At least I remember one there in 1977. Said to be the chair Hickock was sitting in during his last card game. We were in there on Thanksgiving weekend that year and next to nobody else was. I asked the bartender if that was true. He said "We think it is, anyway."
 
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This thread reminded me of the shotgun that was reported to have been used by Ernest Hemingway to commit suicide with in 1961. It is said that it was taken to a local welding shop, the stock was smashed and the rest of the gun was cut into small pieces and then buried somewhere. Wouldn't it be interesting if one day it was discovered that the real suicide gun still exists and is in the possession of someone who was connected to the Hemingway family ? Or someone could dig up the remains of that gun and put them up for sale ? Seems like any gun connected to fame is worth something regardless of condition.
 
This thread reminded me of the shotgun that was reported to have been used by Ernest Hemingway to commit suicide with in 1961. It is said that it was taken to a local welding shop, the stock was smashed and the rest of the gun was cut into small pieces and then buried somewhere. Wouldn't it be interesting if one day it was discovered that the real suicide gun still exists and is in the possession of someone who was connected to the Hemingway family ? Or someone could dig up the remains of that gun and put them up for sale ? Seems like any gun connected to fame is worth something regardless of condition.
I wonder how many tons of wood were sold as "pieces of the true cross".
As others have said in this thread, any kind of collectible comes down to provenance. Gets harder now with computers and the ability to make up fancy certificates of authenticity on your home computer.
 
So one day I was carrying a Colt single-action Army .45 at a gun show.

Old boy walks up to me and offers me five hundred for it.

I tell him he's right to cut it in price. "True, the six-gun came out of the factory in 1902, but the barrel and the cylinder had been replaced before it came into my hands, and afterwards, I'd replaced the hammer and every spring in it. But this here's the reason it's worth five thousand. Provenance, son, provenance. It was the personal weapon of a famous and well-known gunman out of the Southwest."(OK I declined to mention southwest of Virginia.)

"Who might that be?" he asked.

"My own damn poor self."

I was just carrying it because I like it. It wasn't for sale, and he wasn't really a buyer. He was just doing his duty to check and see if I was as dumb as I evidently looked.
 
When he did The Potato Eaters, he dropped in the boiler. When he realized what he did, started his mental problem.
Later on, cleaning with with out checking unloaded, pum.
Great artist, sick personality.
Can we trust CNN, nahh.
 
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It is possible that Van Gogh was shot by kids Van Gogh did not kill himself, as years later one of the villagers gave a death bed confession that he had shot Van Gogh playing Cowboy games. Impossible to know, as is whether the pistol was the lethal weapon or not. Just because a pistol happens to be found 50 years later in the same field that Van Gogh was shot would not make it worth $182,000 to me. The article claims it was in the ground since 1890, and I wonder how they determined that.

Van Gogh's paintings are much better in person than in pictures. This painting, Iris's, has a three dimensionality to it. Van Gogh built up layers of paint to make the pedals above the base layer of canvas. For unknown reasons, blue and green are particularly loved by humans and this picture has a lot of these colors. At one time this was the most expensive painting purchase in the world, now it is probably worth $250 million to $500 million. It is the value of Van Gogh's paintings and wishful thinking that made the pistol sell for so much.


 

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