A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania

This richly illustrated catalog gathers early Pennsylvania firearms, edged weapons, and frontier gear from the celebrated "Restless Oaks" collection in McElhattan, Pennsylvania, with a related partial catalogue from another collection. Compiled by Henry W. Shoemaker and H. Beam Piper, it presents rifles, muskets, pistols, revolvers, Civil War carbines, automatic handguns, hunting tools, and rare foreign arms with scholarly care and a collector's eye for rarity, condition, markings, caliber, and provenance. More than an inventory, it is a vivid reconstruction of the armed Pennsylvanian's world: frontier hunting, militia service, backwoods craftsmanship, and the legendary gunshops where local rifles were born. The book also pays tribute to Seth Iredell Nelson and Seth Nelson, Jr., famed Sinnemahoning hunters and gunsmiths whose knives, axes, powder horns, and other handmade implements embody the hard, resourceful life of the wilderness. Blending history, folklore, and nostalgia, it preserves the human stories, violence, skill, and regional identity carried by these weapons. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.