Colt Single Action Army revolver, once owned by Butch Cassidy, famous Wild West robber has been sold at auction in Southern California for $175,000. The anonymous seller, a schoolteacher and collector in Illinois, was “very happy” with the sale, according to his spokesman Aileen Watanabe. He also said that the revolver went to an anonymous online bidder.
Robert LeRoy Parker, or better known Butch Cassidy was the infamous leader of the Wild Bunch Gang, who robbed banks and trains in the American Old West. He bought the revolver in a hardware store in Vernal, Utah, in 1896. Three years later, Cassidy voluntarily turned the Colt .45 Single Action revolver over to Sheriff Parley Christison in hopes to gain amnesty. Known as the “Amnesty Colt,” it is the most documented of Cassidy’s guns.
“He tried to become a regular citizen by turning over his guns,” said John Eubanks of California Auctioneers & Appraisers.
“Amnesty Colt” is accompanied by a black leather shoulder holster and two binders filled with documentation verifying the revolver’s authenticity.
Butch Cassidy was immortalized in the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” He was played by Paul Newman. The film was nominated for Best Picture and won four Oscars.
At the same auction of Wild West items that California Auctioneers held on Saturday and Sunday in Casitas Springs, 65 miles northwest of Los Angeles, a beaded jacket that belonged to the American Indian leader Crazy Horse has been sold for $10,000.
In a separate auction in New Hampshire Sunday, two pistols found on the bodies of famed Depression-era outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow sold for a combined $504,000. They were bought by a Texas collector who also wished to remain anonymous.
