People with guns collection # 30

From my own personal collection!"Photographer Bob Kotalik - Gun collectors convention - Congress hotel - Mrs. Clyde Culver, of Cortland, Ohio, Holding - Left... a miniature of a Hopkins and Allen pistol. The Originals were carried in the 1870's by dance hall girls. They would hide the guns in their garters or bras. Right... An Elgin Cutlass-pistol. 54 caliber. There were 137 made for the U.S. Army in 1837. There are 13 left." Jul 26 1957

Now an expensive collectors item, the Hopkins and Allen "parrot beak" derringer wasn't much more than an oddity even new. Although it is cute you have to wonder about the effectiveness of that tiny single shot .22 pistol. I would have to think that a lady's sharp fingernails would have certainly been as good, if not a better self-defense tool. Even the long hatpins used by the women of the era would have been as useful to defend herself from ruffians. As for the cutlass pistol we still have them with us today, at least their descendants, and if you've got a pistol with a rail you can have one too.