(November 10, 2007)—Two firearms that belonged to Pancho Villa, the folk hero of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, go on the auction block Saturday in Texas, along with a gun that belonged to frontierswoman Calamity Jane.
The auction is in Fredericksburg.
Auction manager Tom Burks is a former curator of the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco.
He says Villa "always carried a gun to the day of his death, and he didn't care what it was."
But one of them is a real beauty, a Remington single-action handgun engraved with a scroll pattern, which should be the star of the auction since it has Villa's real name, "Doreteo Arango," engraved on one side of the barrel.
Burks said the gun model dates to 1875.
Also available is a Mauser carbine rifle that Villa reportedly dropped in the Rio Grande during a skirmish with opposition forces.
Another gun up for auction is a pocket pistol stored in a leather case bearing the name "Martha Jane Cannary."
That's the alias for "Calamity Jane."
In all, about 1,000 Old West items will be up for auction.