Annie Oakley Auction: Wild West Entertainer’s Gun Sells For $143,400
From the archive: published Jun 10, 2012, 14 years ago. Details may have changed since.
Several items belonging to wild west entertainer Annie Oakley went up for sale this weekend at the “Legends of the Wild West” auction. Her gun, a Parker Brothers 12-gauge shotgun, was the big-ticket item at the auction, bringing in $143,000.
Annie Oakley’s Stetson hat, photographs, and letters also went up for sale. The entire “Legends of the Wild West” auction brought in close to $520,000.
Paul Fees, former senior curator at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, said:
“She was just sparkling as a public performer…. This petite person handling firearms was startling. She was a natural at it. She made it look easy.”
News OK reports that the Annie Oakley auction was put together by the Wild West entertainer’s great-grandnieces. Tommye Tait and Terrye Holcomb inherited the items from their mother, Butler Serene, who passed away in 2009.
According to the Associated Press, Oakley became famous in the 1880s as a sharpshooter in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. She passed away at the age of 66 in 1926.
In 1954, American Western television created a show based on the life of the famous sharpshooter.
Here’s an episode of “Annie Oakley.”