#344 - S&W M&P

 A new arrival...All original, all matching numbers including service stocks...Nickel with 6" barrel...Shipped October 8 1929 to Wolf & Klar in Ft. Worth...S&WHF letter, customer order and factory invoice included...

Wolf & Klar History

As Texas entered the 20th century, Fort Worth was easing away from its origins as a cowtown. Modernity was encroaching as tangles of power lines crossed over newly-paved streets where motor cars began to appear.

By the 1920s, oil money was flowing into the city, seen as a gateway to the oilfields of west Texas.

At 1505 Main Street, a thoroughfare that ran from the Tarrant County Courthouse south to the railyards, was Wolf & Klar, a prominent hardware, jewelry, and gun store that attracted Texas outlaws, lawmen, among others. Gunmakers Colt and Smith & Wesson counted the company as one of their biggest customers. Wolf & Klar was known for its aftermarket nickel plated, engraved guns with carved pearl grips.

On the outskirts of “Hell’s Half Acre,” Wolf & Klar, founded in 1902 by German immigrants Alex Wolf and Jacob Klar, started out as a jewelry store and pawn broker before transitioning to sporting goods in the 1920s and becoming a leading provider of firearms to Texas lawmen.

Smith & Wesson’s .44 Hand Ejector Third Model is known as the Wolf & Klar model after the store ordered 3,500 with an extractor shroud that had been discontinued on the previous model. Because the store moved so many guns, Smith & Wesson took notice of the interest in the revolver, producing just under 5,000 between 1926 and 1940. The company delivered about 1,000 of the uncatalogued guns to Wolf & Klar, making them highly desirable to collectors.

Wolf & Klar would add mother of pearl grips to the guns as well as offer engraving that wasn’t as intricate nor as ornate as some of the factory engraving offered by Smith & Wesson, Colt, or many of the master engravers. However, Colt would sometimes ship its Single Action Army revolvers to engravers like R.J. Kornbrath to engrave and be sent on to the Fort Worth store. Guns like that were cataloged by Wolf & Klar as “Arms De Lux.”

The guns of Texas outlaws, gangsters, and lawmen come through Rock Island Auction Company. How some of the firearms used by those operating outside law may not be known, but there are guns from Great Depression era hoods that came from the same place as the people chasing them, at Wolf & Klar.

Kathryn Kelly was a great marketer. Her husband, George, wasn’t the greatest criminal so she bought him a second-hand Thompson submachine gun from Wolf & Klar and had him practice shooting it. She often gave away used cartridges to promote the man who would be known in his short, inept career as Machine Gun Kelly.

Public enemy No. 1 John Dillinger was carrying a Colt 38 Super on him when he was arrested in Tucson, Arizona in January 1934. The pistol had been shipped to Wolf & Klar. Perhaps the most notorious gangster of the time, Al Capone felt he needed more firepower as he spent time in Miami, Florida in 1929. A friend bought six revolvers and six shotguns from a pawn shop. The guns, including a Smith & Wesson pistol Capone was carrying when he was arrested, had come from Wolf & Klar.

Even a pistol taken from the bullet-riddled Ford of Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow, described as either a Colt M1908 or M1903, shipped to Wolf & Klar in 1924. Taken from the scene, it was gifted to a friend by a member of the posse.

As one of Colt and Smith & Wesson’s biggest customers, Wolf & Klar has enmeshed itself into the fabric of Texas history, providing weapons to those on both sides of the law. The state’s lore and frontier history make a gun shipped to this legendary firearms seller a must have for collectors. Previous auctions have shown the value of Wolf & Klar shipped firearms so the Smith & Wesson .44 Hand Ejector Third Model revolver and the factory engraved first generation Colt Single Action Army revolver rare must-haves that shouldn’t be missed.

Above text courtesy of Rock Island Auction: https://www.rockislandauction.com/riac-blog/texas-outlaws-and-lawmen-shop-at-wolf-klar