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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Undoubtedly the world’s best-known antique arms dealer and authority, Norm Flayderman’s name has become synonymous with historic weapons of all types.

Having handled examples of most...if not all...known models and types of antique arms, Flayderman possesses a prodigious amount of information which he has shared freely with his fellow collectors. Scholarship in his chosen field is easily attested to by the “Acknowledgment” section of almost any antique arms book published within the past decades where his name will be carried, often as a major contributor, or as author of the “Foreword” or “Introduction.”

Norm has received more honors and official recognition than any other professional dealer or collector in his field. An acknowledged arms historian, he acts in an advisory capacity to some of the most prestigious American museums and historical societies. He is Staff Arms Consultant by U.S. Army appointment to the famed Springfield Armory Museum, Arms Consultant by U.S. Marine Corps appointment to the Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C. and Quantico, Virginia, and Arms Consultant by Legislative Act and Governor’s appointment to the State of Connecticut for their historic weapons collections. He most recently received appointment to the Board of Overseers of the U.S.S. Constitution Museum at the Navy Yard, Boston, Massachusetts. He has the unique distinction of being the only arms authority on the editorial/advisory staff of all three major national collector publications. Included among the most notable collections he has officially appraised or catalogued are the West Point Museum at the U.S. Military Academy, the famed Winchester Gun Museum at New Haven, Connecticut, and Cody, Wyoming, the Gettysburg National Museum, the venerable Colt Factory collection at Hartford, Connecticut, the renowned Kindig collection of Kentucky rifles and extensive arms and militaria collections at the Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Widely known and respected in collecting circles in the United States and abroad, Norm’s catalogs enjoyed the longest consecutive run of any ever issued in the antique arms field…over 120 editions in their 45-year span. The detailed descriptions in them, appearing with the earliest issues in the 1950s set new standards for the hobby. In his five decades of actively buying, selling and appraising American and European weapons he has handled a remarkably broad spectrum of antique and historic firearms, including some of the greatest rarities. It was his sincere interest in the entire range of them that was the stimulus to amass the immense storehouse of knowledge that is reflected in this book.

An impressive range of accomplishments for an exceptionally active career. Add to this a hitch in the U.S. Navy in WWII as an aerial photographer and later as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. More recently, in the 1980s, he served 4 years as Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army, in which capacity he often represented the U.S. Army and the Secretary on official business and functions. Graduation from Boston University and an earlier profession in photography all played important roles in his wide ranging career in antique arms.

Norm’s interests are legion. His book, Scrimshaw and Scrimshanders: Whales and Whalemen (the indigenous folkart of the American whalemen and the history of whaling) is considered the definitive treatise on the subject. His most recent contribution to American arms lore, the massive sized, copiously illustrated “The Bowie Knife; Unsheathing An American Legend” met with resounding success when published in 2005. Honored with a foreword by a noted historian at the Smithsonian it received enthusiastic reviews by the press. Sorting out truth from myth, Norm produced the first reliable history of that iconic Bowie knife; from its origin to present-day. The Bowie’s complex mix of history, hardware and tangle of deceptive folklore is at last placed in clear, accurate and logical perspective. He has authored two other books in the collecting field and numerous articles about antique weapons that have appeared in national publications. His multi-faceted career has often been a subject of feature articles appearing in national magazines and the popular press over the years. A little known facet of his interest is that in World War I aviation, a field in which he is also considered a competent authority.

The outdoors holds a special fascination for Norm. He is as much at ease behind the sights of a big bore double-rifle as he is in his professional career. He has stalked big game on safaris in many countries of Africa, where he bagged his share of record trophies; while Europe, Scandinavia, Canada and Iceland have often been on his hunting and fishing itinerary. Norm is among the handful of Americans to have hunted high in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia and the desolate Gobi Desert of Mongolia and Siberia. Hunting expeditions in the Himalayas of India, Poland and Turkey were followed by sporting treks in New Zealand, the Australian Outback and Tien Shan Mountains of the former Russian Republic of Kyrgyzstan, and more recently by a stirring adventure deep in the Amazon Jungle of Brazil.

Each day continues to hold something new and different for this busy fellow. He continues to take particular satisfaction in assuming the challenge and research of a subject that has been little studied, adding meaningfully to his chosen fields and American folklore. A student at heart, he has amassed extensive data for a number of ongoing research projects. As one of the most experienced historians in the field of American swords, he has labored on a planned guide, about the subject ever since his acquisition in 1955 of the most extensive collection of them ever assembled. Although long since disposed (through his catalogs), he had the foresight to photograph all of them individually; those illustrations were subsequently the basis for a significant addition to arms literature “American Swords from the Philip Medicus Collection” with the “Introduction” by Norm. Another pet project “waiting in the wings” is a graphic study of the Civil War years as witnessed through an unrivaled selection of military recruiting posters, printed proclamations, broadsides and handbills. The subject is one which the author is uniquely qualified to tackle and contribute to the lore of that momentous era. And there’s more! Currently he is deeply engrossed in competing a study underway on another unique American primitive art form never previously studied, akin to the whaling sailor’s art of “scrimshaw.” The carvings produced by American soldiers of both North and South and the prisoners-of-war of both those armies during the Civil War were prolific. With the simplest of tools and the most common of materials they fashioned a wide range of fascinating items for themselves and the folks back home…tobacco pipes being their greatest output. Expectantly, that work and other favored “works in progress”…will find their way into print in the not too distant future.