This is a fake Hyde & Goodrich, it being a Belgian produced derringer in
what is apparently an original case with accessories. The barrel is
Belgian proofed underneath.
The point in showing this fake gun in this book is that somewhere on the
West Coast someone is running around stamping odd derringers with the
name Hyde & Goodrich as follows in three lines.
Man^d for
Hyde and Goodrich
Agents, N. O.
When the fellow at the Las Vegas Show walked up to my table and showed
me the gun my eyes popped out that here was a cased Hyde & Goodrich and
I did not stop to analyze it. From the contour of the gun and the French
type casing, I should have realized that it was not an American gun. It
was reasonably priced and I shelled out the money within about thirty
seconds after looking at the gun.
Then that night up in the hotel room I got to looking at the gun and
remembered that I had seen the same gun at the Disneyland Show six
months before and it was not marked at that time. Then I examined the
barrel stampings closer and realized that they were new stampings. Upon
my arrival home I compared this stamping with other guns in our
collection and found that this was a good facsimile but the spacing of
the letters was not the same as on the original. And then, there were
other minute differences in the letters that showed it was new.
As in most of these cases, the fellow I bought it from refused to refund
my money and I got stuck with it.
But it is a good lesson to not buy anything too quick or that is rare or
at a high price unless you study it out first to be sure it is not faked
or altered.