AMONG THE RAREST OF ALL CONFEDERATE HANDGUNS: A “MEMPHIS NOVELTY WORKS” REVOLVER BY LEECH AND RIGDON

ONE OF ONLY THREE KNOWN “MEMPHIS NOVELTY WORKS” CONFEDERATE REVOLVERS

.36 caliber. Serial No. 11. Top of frame stamped “Memphis Novelty Works” (Leech & Rigdon). Barrel: 7 1/2 in. Overall: 13 in.

Confederate revolvers produced in the South during the Civil War have long ranked among the most desirable of all Civil War arms. Because so few examples of these already scarce handguns have survived, they consistently command strong prices at auction and remain centerpieces in advanced collections.

The appearance of the revolver offered here may represent the only opportunity for the discerning collector to acquire an example of this remarkable rarity. Produced by Thomas Leech and Charles Rigdon, it is one of just three known revolvers made by the two men during the Civil War marked “Memphis Novelty Works. ” Used as a trade name at the onset of hostilities by Leech, it remained in use during the earliest phase of his partnership with Rigdon and continued through the spring of 1862. “Memphis Novelty Works” was thereafter superseded by variants including “Novelty Works, Leech & Rigdon Company,” before giving way to the simpler and now more familiar “Leech & Rigdon.”

This scarce early marking firmly places the present arm within the most elusive opening chapter of Confederate revolver production, when Southern makers were still improvising industrial identities as much as they were manufacturing weapons. Few Confederate firms better embody that story than Leech and Rigdon. Beginning operations at Memphis, they were soon compelled by the pressure of Federal advance to relocate southward, carrying with them machinery, workmen, and one of the Confederacy’s most ambitious efforts at domestic arms manufacture. Their revolvers have long been admired for the quality of their construction and the extraordinary circumstances of their production. Yet within that already celebrated body of work, examples bearing the “Memphis Novelty Works” address occupy a category apart, representing the firm’s earliest and most romanticized phase. These revolvers were produced in minute numbers under wartime conditions that left little room for preservation and every likelihood of hard use, attrition, and postwar loss. As a result, examples so marked reside today among the most keenly sought of all Confederate handguns.