Claremont, OK... worth the trip

[RED]

Went to Claremont, OK yesterday. It was a pretty good day. The Davis Museum was OK but I thought the documentation on some of the pieces was lacking. Some pieces were labelled simply "Colt, .32 cal." No information on model, dates of production etc. All in all it is well worth the trip. I was there 4 hours and still didn't see everyone of the 12,000 guns. My friend (a Colt Snake gun collector) was delighted because he has a better collection than theirs. They were missing a Kng Cobra and the 2 Boa's. He has them all.

WE also went to the Will Rogers Museum. That was very interesting as well. If Will was as big as his statue, he was a giant!

[Sunray]

"...No information on..." Most museum workies don't know anything about firearms. Wouldn't know a Colt from a Smolt.

[clintonhater]

Davis was an "accumulator," undeserving of being called a collector, if you associate that term with any reasonable degree of discrimination. Some excellent pieces drifted by chance into his hands, but they are far outnumbered by the mediocre or piss-poor ones.

There's a fascinating story, the details of which I've mostly forgotten, about how he conned certain friends in the Okie legislature into believing he'd assembled a world-class collection, priceless in value, which he'd donate to the state if it agreed to finance the construction of a museum--which it did. That was a wiser expenditure of tax-payer money than many other state projects, but much of the collection is unworthy of being in any museum. On top of that, the sheer volume on display makes it difficult for the casual visitor to appreciate the guns worthy of display--they'd be better served if half of it was culled.

[PWC]

Claremont or Claremore?

[Fred]

I'd heard of the Claremore Hotel gun collection.

[clintonhater]

I'd heard of the Claremore Hotel gun collection.

That was how it started--with the guns hung on the walls all over the place.

[ricwb]

The Davis gun collection is huge, but as mentioned, it contains many "bubba" altered firearms. Not the place to go if you want to check on the originality of a particular firearm. However I stopped in about three years ago to see if by chance the library had any information on Japanese bayonets. The only person working in the library was a young lady - looked to be about high school age. When I described the marking on the bayonet, she shocked me by naming the manufacturer correctly as she pulled a book off the shelf to verify the correctness of her answer! Most impressive - my kind of girl! Good to know that some young people are still interested in old military hardware.

[clintonhater]

The Davis gun collection is huge, but as mentioned, it contains many "bubba" altered firearms. Not the place to go if you want to check on the originality of a particular firearm. However I stopped in about three years ago to see if by chance the library had any information on Japanese bayonets. The only person working in the library was a young lady - looked to be about high school age. When I described the marking on the bayonet, she shocked me by naming the manufacturer correctly as she pulled a book off the shelf to verify the correctness of her answer! Most impressive - my kind of girl! Good to know that some young people are still interested in old military hardware.

Very impressive--almost unbelievable! But there seem to be a disproportionate number of young females acting as curators in arms collections--they show up on certain History Channel, PBS, and other TV programs. Inclined to believe that most of them have been hired merely to satisfy Equal Employment Opportunity Act requirements, as their spiel quickly reveals how little they actually know about the subject; the one you encountered is an obvious exception.

A very distinguished regional history museum near here contains quite a large & respectable collection of antique guns & fishing tackle; don't mean a "county museum," but an institution with a multi-million dollar annual budget. The female curator of that dept., to whom I've spoken on several occasions, is distinguished by an almost total ignorance of the objects in the collection, beyond what's written on the ID cards, which were prepared by someone outside the museum.

[Johnny P]

Mr. Davis was a local from my area that traded thousands of acres of virgin timber land for the hotel in Claremont, OK where the collection use to be. He bought anything and everything, with a lot of it being bought for virtually nothing during the depression. I was there several years ago and one wall was nothing but confiscated pistols donated by the Tulsa police or county sheriff's office.

Not too far away is the Woolaroc Museum in Bartlesville, which is certainly worth the time to visit. Some really nice and rare guns as well as many other interesting things to see. It was built by Mr. Phillips that formed Phillips Petroleum.

[clintonhater]

Not too far away is the Woolaroc Museum in Bartlesville, which is certainly worth the time to visit. Some really nice and rare guns as well as many other interesting things to see. It was built by Mr. Phillips that formed Phillips Petroleum.

Anybody traveling with limited time, the Woolaroc is a better choice than the Davis.

But if in that general area, make the Gilcrease in Tulsa destination No. 1!

[ricwb]

Have to agree with clintonhater! The collection of 1911 pistols at Woolaroc is exceptional, as are many of the other firearms there. And for those of you traveling I-40 or I-35 through Oklahoma, don't miss the 45th Infantry Museum in Oklahoma City. It is one of the best collections of American military firearms anywhere, as well as some great WW2 German firearms! They also have a nice collection of armor vehicles outside. Free, but donations are accepted!