Stembridge Gun Rental Movie Rifles

[Spaffo]

An antique shop here in Redondo Beach just obtained 4 antique rifles originally from Stembridge Gun Rentals.
Paperwork with them says they were rented and used in "How the West Was Won".
They were made to look like Indian rifles and are heavily modified from their original configuration.
There is a Colt, a Deringer, and 2 others.
I think he's asking $600 each or so. Do these have that kind of value?

[Spaffo]

The shop is the Antique Corral on Pacific Coast Highway, if anyone is interested.
Not generally my collecting area.
They also have a 1817 Springfield flintlock musket, made in 1832, for $1700.

[Ora Serrata]

Are they shootable? Or just props? High prices if just props unless screen used by big name actor.

[SVT-40]

Way to high. Just ask yourself, why are they worth that much?

[sealocan]

Leave the gun story, take the cannoli?


No that's not it,

it's buy the gun, not the story.

I think there may be a movie buff in a wealthy foreign country where they restrict their firearms rights who would pay that price gladly but here I think they need to connect it to some famous well-liked actor with some photographs to get that kind of money.

[Spaffo]

I believe they are just props, probably carried by extras playing Indians.

[Spaffo]

The flintlock musket is not from the same batch. It's a real, relatively original gun that appears functional.

[The Gleam]

Those modern tacks and the shabby brass sheet-metal wraps are ornamentation to dress up otherwise junk guns for old western movie props. These would have been "the Indians' guns" in whatever B-rate Westerns they appeared.

$50.00 props or for parts; not even good enough to be wall-hangers.

Every Stembridge gun that did not have actual authentication letters as use by a celeb, or specific appearance, that has appeared on the open market that I've had the chance to inspect and/or acquire, was not worth much more than an article for parts - if that.

Most were abused, modified, embellished, and because they are props, most always have mismatched parts, cuts/holes/screws that don't belong where they appear, they make use of common hardware-store modern zinc-plated fasteners to even drywall screws to hold then them together or tack on stocks, painted with black, silver, or gray Krylon to appear one-color, tacks and other scrap metal to dress them up, completely rusted internally and bores resembling a sewer-pipe - but cleaned up on the outside and polished in the white to look shiny, you name it.

Lots of people go for them for the 'mystique' of what might have been a film prop-gun, but most often the stuff appearing out there is the background junk that was solely meant to fill the void.

For that matter, Independent Studio Services (ISS) acquired most everything and anything that was decent when they bought out most all of the Stembridge inventory, and likely still has possession of any of it that has any value to this day. I've seen some items appear here and there that were documented to certain actors that Stembridge had, but even then - the provenance aside- the stuff up close is junk.

https://issprops.com/weapons/

You're buying it because it is was corroded by Steve McQueen's sweaty palms.

Per the video below - go to 1:50 to just see the mass amount of junk muskets, 1873 Trapdoors, Krags, Lebels, etc that Stembridge had and you can bet that they're not in any better shape now just looking at how they were stored and beat up on films sets since then, for so many years.

Stembridge did have some exquisite stuff, but lots of that stayed in the ISS inventory or sold at high-dollar to private hands. Now ISS has a lot of nice stuff, and you can see that in the 2nd video below, ironically also hosted by a "Larry".

Stembridge also had a lot of true prop guns. Plenty of wood and rubber dummies.

[Spaffo]

Great info, Gleam. Your description is spot on. Thanks.

[pitfighter]

Yes - dead on, Gleam -
I rent from ISS regularly, and HPR.

Remember Gibbons, Ellis and the last days of Stembridge, too - though Stembridge was before my time really.
Gibbons did my last "AW" transfers in '99.

Many of the old studios had their own armories too - so the prop guns could have changed hands many times, and some may well have been used in the silent era, and simply shifted from prop house to prop house, to say well used would be an understatement.

Those guns in the OP are fun, but, trying to add value because of a studio association is sort of like saying an old car is worth more because of the mileage on the clock.

[stephenjd]

I like prop stuff, have a few things that are labeled
Got this at a show recently for $20

[stephenjd]

A friend gave this to me, it was his gun show hat for years

[oddjob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWi63fOea2M&t=420s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxOhxZcO8v0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFmiV08o3YY&t=929s

Videos of Larry Vickers & Ken Hackathorn at ISS looking at movie guns.