Posted 12 years ago
Chrisnp
(310 items)
This is yesterday’s find while cleaning out the ceiling crawl space of our American Legion Hall.
Among the boxes of decades old files, photos, holiday decorations and other ephemera was a long forgotten WWII vintage M2 flare pistol! I don’t know much about flare pistols, and am currently checking out its value. At the next meeting we’ll decide what to do with it – either sell it or put it in the trophy case.
The pistol is made of brass and quite heavy. The grips appear to be Bakelite. The mechanism is pretty simple. The pistol was loaded by pushing a flare down the muzzle. The projection at the back of the handle is a grip safety. Holding it down by gripping the handle allows you to pull the trigger. Pressing the lever on the side of the pistol released the spent shell to fall out of the barrel.
The fourth picture was also found in the crawlspace – A photo of the legion hall as it looked shortly after the post was opened in 1954. The land was donated by the city and an old school building (also donated) was moved onto the land. You’ll notice we haven’t even gotten the grass planted yet. From this you can imagine the size of the crawl space I was trying to move around inside of. The files I found went back to the 1960s, and I found nothing later than 1977.
Oh, and we still have the big round metal American Legion insignia you see hanging from the corner of the building. That was in another storeroom.
I say put it in the trophy case.
As a Legion member myself, I vote for putting in the Trophy case. Would serve as a reminder of our past and possible insight other Vets to add to the display.
The problem is our post has limited space in the trophy case, and several years ago our finances forced us to lease our building out to the Fraternal Order of Eagles. The Eagles have been good tenants but everything outside of the case and one small storage room is theirs. They wanted the crawl space for their stuff. We have it in the lease that we can use the building once a month for our meetings, but that’s about it.
Perhaps we could write down where it came from and loan it to our district post for display.
Sounds like an option, the history behind how and where it was found, should be attached no matter what the outcome. Very possible that the District Post would be proud to display along with the printed material you would provide. I'd try that, if it was me.