Wheelgun Wednesday: You Can Buy The Lone Ranger's Revolvers
What is the most famous handgun in the history of fiction? James Bond’s Walther PPK? Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum S&W? Considering the Lone Ranger’s history that dates all the way back to the 1930s, you could argue that this legend of the Wild West—or at least, a fictional version of the Wild West—deserves to have his revolvers up for consideration. And now, thanks to an upcoming Morphy auction, you can buy those pistols.
Sold At Auction @ TFB:
Who Was That Masked Man?
As far as modern-day fictional heroes go, the Lone Ranger had one of the best runs of them all. The character, a vigilante of the American frontier, first appeared on a Detroit-area radio station in 1933, created by Fran Striker and borrowing ideas from an earlier show on a Buffalo radio station that Striker had run there. The Lone Ranger proved very popular, spreading to the Mutual Broadcasting System of radio stations, then NBC’s Blue Network—and that was just the beginning. In the years that followed, books and comic books featuring the Lone Ranger’s adventures hit the market, and then a television show that ran from 1949 through 1957, with an attempted reboot in 1961, as well as a cartoon from 1966 through 1968, and another cartoon series in the 1980s.
The Lone Ranger also appeared in film on and off over the years, including serials in the 1930s, a couple of movies in the 1950s, a 1981 box office bomb, and a two-hour direct-to-TV film in 2003 starring Chad Michael Murray, that era’s foremost himbo—that project initially started as a potential TV reboot but went nowhere because kids with cellphones and CD players didn’t give a hoot about cowboys and Indians.
Most recently, Armie Hammer played the Lone Ranger in a 2013 feature film that didn’t do so well at the box office (see a theme here?).
At one point, there was even a Lone Ranger title for the NES video game system. This is a character with staying power—they were making Lone Ranger comic books within the last decade.
Why the long success? It was a case of the right character at the right time, especially in the post-World War II era, where kids ate up the goody two-shoes image of a heroic Western figure who only shot to wound his enemies. The TV series was particularly well-timed. The Lone Ranger’s secret identity gimmick (complete with a domino mask hiding his face), his native American sidekick Tonto, his horse Silver and his rigid moral code all made for a memorable character that audiences loved.
For all but one of those TV seasons, as well as a 1949-1952 run on the radio show, the Lone Ranger was played by Clayton Moore. While kids might not have seen his full face on television (he always wore a mask or a disguise), he was the actor who defined the role. It is Clayton Moore’s revolvers that are being sold at an upcoming Morphy auction.
Six-Guns With History
The revolvers Morphy is auctioning at the June 21-22, 2025, Old West Show in Santa Fe, New Mexico, are from the estate of television producer Jack Wrather. According to Morphy’s listing, these are the actual revolvers that were used to film the black-and-white TV show in the 1950s. They weren’t used in real-life shootouts with bad guys, but they were used a lot, and that means they have had some work over the years to clean them up. Morphy lists the condition of one of the Single Action Army revolvers as “Excellent retaining majority of reapplied nickel finish with some handling marks and muzzle flaking. The ejector housing screw has been replaced. Grips are shy to frame. Four correct clicks. Bore is well defined but shows abrasions. Serial 182982 was manufactured in 1899 and has the smokeless frame. The two line patent legend is still visible on left side of frame. The Colt barrel address is still quite legible. No visible caliber stamp on left side of barrel.”
These are so-called Artillery Models, as Peacemakers with 5.5-inch barrels. The grips are not original; stars of cowboy films often had white grips on their revolvers, to reinforce their good-guy persona, and these revolvers have a set of white composite grips. The lot also includes six of the Lone Ranger's silver-plated deactivated cartridges. Morphy expects the revolvers to sell in the range of $25,000 to $35,000. You can see more info on the auction here.
At the auction, a black mask that was a distinctive part of the Lone Ranger’s getup will also go under the gavel. Morphy expects this to sell in the $25,000 to $45,000 range, which might sound like a lot, but this mask from the TV show was perhaps even more key to the Lone Ranger’s appeal than his handguns. See that lot listed here.
And one last note: This isn’t the first time the Lone Ranger’s guns have been auctioned off. Back in 2018, Rock Island Auction sold a shotgun owned by John Hart, the replacement actor who substituted for Clayton Moore for 52 episodes of the TV show, due to a contract dispute. That shotgun had also been owned by Jay Silverheels, who played the Lone Ranger’s sidekick Tonto. That auction also sold two revolvers owned by John Hart—see RIA’s write-up here.
Professional hoser with fudd-ish leanings.
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good story, great times, every Saturday morning.... the Lone Ranger.
Back in the 80's, I managed a very large gun store here in L.A.---Clayton Moore was a semi-regular visiter and very friendly guy---we often talked and became friends---great guy! RIP amigo.