RIAC Receives True West Magazine “Best of the West” Award

01-24-2018
By Joel Kolander

Rock Island Auction Company is pleased to announce it has been awarded Best Old West Firearms Auction by True West Magazine in their 2018 “Best of the West” Awards. The magazine’s editors and readers pick their favorites in numerous categories on an annual basis, with awards given to the Editor’s Choice and the Reader’s Choice. Truly celebrating all things West, favorites are selected in categories as far ranging as leather work, collectibles, art, firearms, Western travel, books, gun engraving, Western movies, and even cemeteries. RIAC’s award was one of only approximately one dozen given to a business business east of the Mississippi.

Specifically cited in the award, was the importance of RIAC’s dispersing of the Lifetime Collection of Robert M. Lee.  Mr. Lee was well-known far beyond the firearms world as a conservationist, a collector of fine automobiles, and as an author. Some of his firearms are famously featured in a gallery bearing his name in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“It is absolutely our pleasure to be recognized by a magazine such as True West,” said RIAC President Kevin Hogan. “We like to say ‘Samuel Colt is alive and well at Rock Island Auction Company,’ but True West keeps an entire history alive. We thank them for this award and for their work in preserving American history.”

This year was especially significant as True West celebrates its 65th anniversary, further extending its reign as the world’s oldest, continuously published western American magazine.