THE BATTALION
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1981
Page 3
Metzger gun collection offers
million dollar history lesson
By TERRY DURAN
Battalion Staff
There is a million dollars worth
of history on the third floor of the
Memorial Student Center.
A 1978 appraisal of the Metzger
Memorial Gun Collection came to
$554,000, but Dr. Jim Earle, head
of the collection’s caretaking com
mittee, estimated the 509 guns in
the collection could bring double
that on the auction block.
The collection, on display in
the MSC since the building’s
opening in fall 1950, was donated
to Texas A&M University by for
mer dairy magnate Carl Metzger
of Dallas upon his death in 1949.
An ardent firearms collector
since boyhood, Metzger stepped
up his already intense collecting
activities after building one of the
largest dairy operations in the
state.
An alcove in the Metzger collec
tion room also contains a com
memorative gun collection don
ated by Sam Houston Sanders,
Class of ’22. The 200-piece San
ders collection is comprised of re
latively modem Colt pistols com
memorating such things as battles
of World Wars I and II, the com
pletion of the transcontinental
railroad and famous lawmen.
Sanders, aformer Aggie football
player and later a coach, is cur
rently Professor Emeritus of the
University of Tennessee Medical
School in Memphis.
Earle is quick to emphasize that
the value of the Metzger collec
tion lies in the history behind the
guns, not just in their age.
“You’ll never find a gun at a
rummage sale,’’ he said. “People
in the early days looked at their
weapons as one of their perma
nent possessions.
“Back then, people only had
three or four possessions impor
tant to them — a watch, a gun,
maybe a family Bible. People
knew if they had any trouble, they
had to handle it themselves. They
had to live by the gun.
Jailed C.S. man found
hanging from cell bars
“To find a gun 120 to 150 years
old still in good shape is pretty
uncommon because they got used
that much.’’
Earle said Samuel Colt, one of
the world’s most acclaimed
firearms manufacturers, would
never have been successful were it
not for Samuel Walker of the
Texas Rangers.
Earle said Colt went broke after
he made his prototype revolver,
the Colt Paterson. The Texas Ran
gers used Colt Patersons — six of
which are on display in the Metz
ger collection — in border warfare
with Mexican troops and liked
them.
Walker later sought out a desti
tute Colt in New York City and
asked him to make revolvers for
the Rangers. A thousand Colt
Walkers — heavier and more
accurate than the Patersons —
were shipped to Texas in 1847 for
use by the Rangers.
With the invention of the Colt
Walker, the Rangers had the rug
gedness and firepower needed in
their operations. Lawrence Sulli
van Ross, later president of the
A&M College of Texas, used this
type weapon during his time as a
Ranger before the Civil War.
The Metzger collection of Colt
Patersons includes Serial No. 1 —
the first one produced. Earle said
listings of similar weapons by
Christie’s, a prominent New York
auction house, run from $22,000
to $25,000. Only 1,100 of the Colt
Walkers were made.
Earle said some of the guns are
genuine art objects, as well as ob
jects of historic interest.
“Some of these guns are defi
nitely not something you would
want to kill someone with, but
rather (they are) an art form,” he
said. “The makers did a very good
job with what were essentially
very crude materials.”
Many of the weapons on display
in both the Metzger and Sanders
collections show finely crafted
pearl or ivory inlaid grips, intri
cate engraving on barrels and
chamber housings.
The Metzger collection also in
cludes firearms from around the
world that date from the 15th
through 18th centuries. The old
est piece in the collection is a
Chinese “hand cannon” about five
inches long, dating fi-om the 14th
century.
teve Suggs (1), a mechanical engineering
lajor, and Matt Grubb, a petroleum engi-
iering major look at a case of handguns in
Staff photo by Becky Swanson
the Metzger Gun collection on the third floor
of the Memorial Student Center. Suggs and
Grubb are both freshmen from Tyler.
A College Station man was
found hanging from a cell bar win
dow in the College Station jail
Sunday evening.
Larry Artressia, 38, was
arrested Sunday at approximately
7:15 p.m. on a charge for public
intoxication, said a spokeswoman
from the police station, at 611
Texas Ave.
At8:15 p.m. the jailenchecking
on Artressia found the man hang
ing from the bars by his shirt, the
spokeswoman said.
College Station firemen were
summoned to aid Artressia, but
Justice of the Peace Mike Cal
laghan already had pronounced
him dead on the scene.
Artressia was an employee at
Texas World Speedway, located
on Highway 6.
est finds more anxiety
n father-reared women
( " Young women brought up by
eir fathers may be more anxious
id impulsive than those raised by
ilfi parents or a single mother,
ording to Texas A&M Univer-
i psychologists,
i pe psychlogists’ study tested
)th males and females who had
jg'ed with "only their father or
Tther and others who had lived
|hboth parents, but researchers
gy Clark and Dr. William S.
holes were most interested in
fiat effect, if any, father rearing
|d on females.
Bark said that the study is only
! second done on the effects of
ler rearing.
[The results show that in the
of anxiety, impulsiveness
heterosexual interaction,
les raised by their fathers —
ifecially those who lived with
ir fathers as youngsters — dif
id from their counterparts
pd in two-parent homes or
me-mother homes.
—■'’fremales raised by their fathers
iwed no difference in the areas
sex-role orientation, achieve-
ent motivation and self-esteem.
[The most obvious difference
'Pp in the area of anxiety.
V*! The test was aimed at assessing
Iralized anxiety. It contained
stions such as, “Does it bother
toni’ ftobe in large crowds?”
Tlii'|Clark said the research has indi-
ig{jilted that single-parent children
|R „, Slightly more anxious.
er( ,(#"We found that females who
1 ^ with their fathers — particu-
ly those who lived with them
(in life — were more anxious
any other group,” Clark said,
data indicated a significant
Sstical difference.
“We think the reason is that
when a female loses her mother
she loses her same-sex role model
and her primary caretaker. A male
living with his father would lose
only his primary caretaker.
Females who had been raised
by their fathers when they were
youngsters also showed more im
pulsiveness (the inability to delay
gratification) than the subjects
who at an early age had been
raised by a single mother. Female
subjects who entered a single
father home at a later age did not
show increased impulsiveness.
The test also shows that those
brought up by an opposite-sex pa
rent tended to develop more se
rious relationships as adults.
“We knew there was a lot of
research on children who lived in
single-mother homes, but there is
basically no research on children
who live with their father, Clark
said. “That is a pretty new phe
nomenon.”
Although the results of the
study must be replicated, Clark
said some conclusions can be
drawn. She based her master’s
thesis on the study.
“Living with an opposite-sex
parent makes a difference,” Clark
said. “We can’t say yet what that
difference is when the single pa
rent is a father. The research is so
new.”
Research on single-father
homes becomes even more impor
tant as the courts award increasing
numbers of fathers the custody of
their children, she said.
“Ten percent of the children
who live in single-parent homes
live with their father, ” Clark said,
“and the percentage is increasing
rapidly. ”
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