Art Center displays unique Colt firearms
By Russ Oechslin, Journal Correspondent | Posted: Friday, August 29, 2008
Denny LeVett admires one of the rarest guns in his collection, a 12-inch Texas Paterson Colt revolver made in the 1830s in Paterson, N.J. The gun is part of a 60-gun exhibit, including the first rifles Colt sold to the U.S. Army (background) on display in the Monte Pearson Gallery at the Pearson Lakes Art Center in Okoboji, Iowa. LeVett will speak about the significance of the Paterson guns in the gallery at 5:30 p.m. Sunday. (Photo by Russ Oechslin)
OKOBOJI, Iowa -- After collecting antique firearms for more than 60 years, Denny LeVett is seeing the bulk of his collection in one place at one time for the first time at the Pearson Lakes Art Center.
And he's as excited as the proverbial wide-eyed kid in a candy store, racing from one exhibit to the next, explaining the uniqueness and beauty of Paterson Colt firearms that date to the 1830s.
Each of the pieces is unique in one way or another, and mostly rare, like the matched pair of 9-inch Texas revolvers, one of only two such sets known to exist. The other set is on display at the Colt museum in Hartford, Conn.
Most of the individual pieces have been kept in vaults for years. The only guns LeVett has had daily access to are the nine that line the walls of his office in Carmel, Calif.
Guns in an art museum?
Except to chase after an occasional pheasant, LeVett says he is not a hunter. None of the guns on display has been fired since he acquired them.
"I've never fired these things. You wouldn't want to," he says.
The PLAC's Director of Visual Arts, Lissa Potter, sees the Paterson show as one that will "broaden the PLAC's exhibition offerings for the public to include historical objects that fall into the category of the applied arts."
Potter points to dozens of examples in the Paterson collection that show high-quality engravings, "silver inlays and ivory carved embellishments. These pristine examples are displayed in their original velvet-lined mahogany cases with all the original parts," she adds.
LeVett concurs. "To me -- and a lot of other people -- these are real works of art."
One rifle he estimates cost the government about $100 before the Civil War. It now might be worth more than 300 times that amount.
But LeVett doesn't like to talk about numbers -- just the history of these firearms. He will do so at 5:30 p.m. Sunday in a talk at the Art Center.
Colts made history
A popular post Civil War slogan explained "Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal."
Colt's success story began with the 1836 patent for a gun equipped with a revolving cylinder that would hold five or six bullets. The Colt revolver provided the user with a tremendous advantage over the one- or two-barrel flintlocks of the day.
In the 1830s, says LeVett, "there were hundreds of makers of arms -- hundreds. But nobody perfected them like Sam Colt.
"There were some other revolving types of firearms. But it was Colt that managed to come out with the first patent with a fulminating cap. It was just phenomenal what happened."
Colt's Patersons are named for the New Jersey city where they were made before his Patented Arms Manufacturing Company was forced into bankruptcy in 1842. When the war with Mexico began four years later, Colt found more financing and began manufacturing a new, more powerful revolver in Hartford, Conn.
The most famous gun of all time came in 1873, with the Colt single-action six-shooter.
LeVett sees his 12-inch Paterson Colt as one of his most rare and prized objects. "I don't think too many people can even fathom the rarity of the Paterson Colt -- and I would just as soon they don't."
LeVett's Paterson Colt collection will be displayed at the Pearson Lakes Art Center through October. A limited number of signed and numbered copies of R. L. Wilson's "The Paterson Colt Book," featuring the LeVett collection, will be on sale during the exhibition.
If you go...
Denny LeVett's gallery talk on his Paterson Colt gun collection will take place at 5:30 p.m. Sunday in the Monte Pearson Gallery at the Pearson Lakes Art Center in Okoboji, Iowa.
The PLAC is north of the Okoboji Summer Theatre on Highway 71.
And he's as excited as the proverbial wide-eyed kid in a candy store, racing from one exhibit to the next, explaining the uniqueness and beauty of Paterson Colt firearms that date to the 1830s.
Each of the pieces is unique in one way or another, and mostly rare, like the matched pair of 9-inch Texas revolvers, one of only two such sets known to exist. The other set is on display at the Colt museum in Hartford, Conn.
Most of the individual pieces have been kept in vaults for years. The only guns LeVett has had daily access to are the nine that line the walls of his office in Carmel, Calif.
Guns in an art museum?
Except to chase after an occasional pheasant, LeVett says he is not a hunter. None of the guns on display has been fired since he acquired them.
"I've never fired these things. You wouldn't want to," he says.
The PLAC's Director of Visual Arts, Lissa Potter, sees the Paterson show as one that will "broaden the PLAC's exhibition offerings for the public to include historical objects that fall into the category of the applied arts."
Potter points to dozens of examples in the Paterson collection that show high-quality engravings, "silver inlays and ivory carved embellishments. These pristine examples are displayed in their original velvet-lined mahogany cases with all the original parts," she adds.
LeVett concurs. "To me -- and a lot of other people -- these are real works of art."
One rifle he estimates cost the government about $100 before the Civil War. It now might be worth more than 300 times that amount.
But LeVett doesn't like to talk about numbers -- just the history of these firearms. He will do so at 5:30 p.m. Sunday in a talk at the Art Center.
Colts made history
A popular post Civil War slogan explained "Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal."
Colt's success story began with the 1836 patent for a gun equipped with a revolving cylinder that would hold five or six bullets. The Colt revolver provided the user with a tremendous advantage over the one- or two-barrel flintlocks of the day.
In the 1830s, says LeVett, "there were hundreds of makers of arms -- hundreds. But nobody perfected them like Sam Colt.
"There were some other revolving types of firearms. But it was Colt that managed to come out with the first patent with a fulminating cap. It was just phenomenal what happened."
Colt's Patersons are named for the New Jersey city where they were made before his Patented Arms Manufacturing Company was forced into bankruptcy in 1842. When the war with Mexico began four years later, Colt found more financing and began manufacturing a new, more powerful revolver in Hartford, Conn.
The most famous gun of all time came in 1873, with the Colt single-action six-shooter.
LeVett sees his 12-inch Paterson Colt as one of his most rare and prized objects. "I don't think too many people can even fathom the rarity of the Paterson Colt -- and I would just as soon they don't."
LeVett's Paterson Colt collection will be displayed at the Pearson Lakes Art Center through October. A limited number of signed and numbered copies of R. L. Wilson's "The Paterson Colt Book," featuring the LeVett collection, will be on sale during the exhibition.
If you go...
Denny LeVett's gallery talk on his Paterson Colt gun collection will take place at 5:30 p.m. Sunday in the Monte Pearson Gallery at the Pearson Lakes Art Center in Okoboji, Iowa.
The PLAC is north of the Okoboji Summer Theatre on Highway 71.
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