The picture was taken in New York back in 1909. The man in the photo is participating in a sport that was briefly very popular in the early 20th century. People would don heavy canvas coats and fencing style helmets with thick, clear glass panels protecting their eyes - and then duel with each other using wax bullets. Often, as seen here, the guns even had guards like you find on a cutlass to protect their hands.
I had never heard of this before, but apparently is was popular enough back in the day that the sport was included in the 1908 Olympic Games.
1 comment:
Interesting. That guy looks pretty serious. It also looks like he's holding a Thompson/Center Contender, but I suppose that is because the Contender is such an old-fashioned looking gun. I do wonder what sort of pistols they used.
Wikipedia has nothing about it on their 1908 Olympics page.
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