Page 11 - Auction84-Book1

LOT 1377
Very Ornate Gold and Silver Ornamented Paris Marked Flintlock Pistol Decorated for the Ottoman Market
Warren Thomas 'Tom' Lewis
Warren Thomas 'Tom' Lewis, of Evergreen, Colorado, passed away Christmas night after a year-long illness. Tom was one of the original group of enthusiasts of the 1950's & 1960's who helped bring the study and collecting of Smith & Wesson firearms to the forefront of the gun collecting world and, as Member # 24, was among the earliest members of the S&WCA when it was formed in 1970.
Tom was educated in a private boys school and in 1953 obtained a degree in Geology from Ohio Wesleyan University. Following
graduation he was drafted into the U. S. Army, later serving a tour in Iceland, and at one time was an Army pistol team member. Honorably discharged in 1955, Tom was soon employed as an oil & gas geologist with Gulf Oil Company in Cheyenne, Wyoming and worked there a year before transferring to Denver, Colorado where he would realize the fulfillment of his childhood dream - to spend
his life in the West, in the Colorado Rocky Mountains that were so near and dear to his Yankee-born cowboy soul.
An avid gun collector and trader since his teens, after ten years of chasing oil, Tom – who would forever after refer to himself as ‘an unemployed geologist - followed his hobby into business as a full-time gun dealer in 1967. His first major 'score' was the S&W collection of S. Lewis Hutcheson, of Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the most important collections of that day and time. In the 50 years since he handled the major collections of the best of the best, not only in the finest S&W's known to exist, but as one of the preeminent collectors and dealers of fine Winchesters and many other great guns. In the late 1970's he turned his personal collecting attention to high-art European wheel locks and flintlocks, subsequently amassing one of the finest and multiple award-winning collections of museum quality European firearms in private hands, while managing to hang onto a few special S&W’s along the way. Collectors world-wide will freely testify that a visit to his gun room has been one of the highlights of their gun collecting journey.
At one time or other Tom was a member of” virtually every gun collecting organization on the planet”, including 51 years in the American Society of Arms Collectors, where he was privileged to serve on the Board of Directors and as President from 1985-1987. His ‘other’ major passion was 1936 V-8 Ford's, of which he’d owned many since his youth. Until recent months, his daily 'driver' for more years than any of us can count, was a yellow-tan rumble seat 1936 Roadster with right-hand drive. It has been virtually everywhere a car show or Early Ford V-8 Club tour event was held across the country, and still he also found time to work on and drive his several
other very special ‘36 Ford's as well. 9