GUEST: It belonged to my great-grandfather, and his name was Emile Hesnard. He came from France to the Black Hills of South Dakota around 1882. As far as we know, he bought it when he came here. I'm sure he didn't purchase a gun in France.
APPRAISER: Was he a gold seeker in the Black Hills?
GUEST: Came for the gold rush.
APPRAISER: This is exactly from that time period. It's an unusual gun because it's a conversion from a percussion to a cartridge. And you can see that with the type of hammer that it has and the fact that right here, it has a loading gig. Here on the cylinder, this naval battle scene is commemorating a battle from the Mexican-American War. This gun probably dates about 1870. But what's really quite tremendous about this piece is you have the original holster still with it. And I suppose this is the one that he had and carried.
GUEST: Yes, it is, yeah.
APPRAISER: It's a very rare holster. It's what they call a California Slim Jim pattern holster. It's typical, where the shape of the holster is almost dead identical to the shape of the gun. And this re-curved piece right here, that's classic of this type of holster. You're looking at these type of decorations, which is a little bit California, a little bit Mexican, from the influence of the Spanish here in California. This is a great combination. Very scarce gun in a terribly scare holster. Holsters just don't last very long. At auction, you'd probably be looking in the vicinity of about $5,000 to $7,000 for this piece.
GUEST: Okay.
