Driftwood Johnson
Member
here is a Rollin White .22
Another family heirloom.
Now that is certainly interesting. Rollin White was the guy who came up with the idea of boring the chambers through a cylinder to accept metallic cartridges. He is the guy who refused to sell his patent outright to Smith and Wesson. He is the guy who S&W paid a royalty of $.25 to for every revolver they manufactured using his patent. And he is the guy who got stuck chasing down all the patent infringements.
I see that is a solid frame revolver, rather than the Tip Ups S&W was producing at the time, otherwise it is very similar to the little revolvers S&W was making.
Do you have a photo of the markings on that revolver? My understanding is that for a time Smith and Wesson was buying up revolvers manufactured by Rollin White when they could not fulfill all their orders. White's company was located in Lowell Massachusetts. It would be really interesting to see the markings, if any, on that revolver.