Historical gun question??

[Barbara Kramer Markwordt]

My Gr Grandfather, George T. Kramer, belonged to the Allentown Police Dept. approx. 1920-1930 as a motorcycle officer. He owned a 38 Smith & Wesson, aka lemon squeezer that I believe he used on the job. I note numerous postings about officers being required to provide their own guns and thus, question if this gun was a departmental gun or his personal gun. Was the gun typical of that time for an officer or not. If anyone can give me some answers would greatly appreciate it.

ALSO, who or where do I write to see if there is any other data on his tenure with the department.

[iceman5054]

Welcome to the forum. Have you contacted APD directly? I would ask someone in the union if there is possibly a union record of employment. I am not a cop/lawyer, but yes, I have heard of many departments that carried a .38 at that time. I do not know of a way to say for sure if he was carrying his personal weapon or an issued weapon. I could see it going either way. Even now some officers are issued weapons, but some carry their own...

[brian]

i would not say the lemon squeezer was a typical "cop" pistol of the 20s and 30's more like a "cop"pistol of 1890s-10's.
but some thing around 250k of them were produced between five models from c.1887-1940. so it is very possible quite a few of them were still walking a beat as late as the 1930's.