This just might be the coolest pocket dump I’ve seen. From Lon in Florida:

For those who don’t know, a revenue officer (in the 50’s & 60″s) spent their time driving down dirt roads, back woods and swamps busting up moonshine stills, arresting and chasing bootleggers. Everything here was my Grandfathers, except of course for the cigar, but he always had one as he was an avid cigar smoker, so I thought I’d include it.

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63 COMMENTS

      • Nope. I meant to convey my utter disdain for prohibition and the agents of the state which carried out its mandate. It was so effective they had no choice but to give up, but not until they’d hurt so many people, and bred criminality in others. Although now we have nascar…

        • Wood, I agree with you. The prohibition of things (not artificially virulent or concentratedly radioactive) should be prohibited. To those who disagree, there are countries besides America where you can go and have all the statism you’d like.

        • Prohibition was the War on Drugs of it’s day. Ruined many lives until the Govt. decided it was better to tax liquor than ban it. Actually George Washington was the first president to want to tax liquor. Now the Feds have figured out a way to tax Marijuana and will eventually make it available country wide and say “so sad too bad” to all the people and families who’s lives they ruined with that BS prohibition.

        • Prohibition ended decades before the 1950’s, folks, try to keep up. These stills were producing in order to avoid paying taxes (revenue) as opposed to you can’t have booze.

          • I feel similarly about “legal theft” by the .gov. Especially given how they spend those ill-gotten gains. Even now they ruin the little guy and the real offenders (big business, lobbyists etc.) get off with a slap in the wrist. Still ruining lives. Low hanging fruit and all that.

  3. He carry any extra ammo? Did they even have speed strips or speedloaders back then? Or were they stuck with moon clips or having rounds on a belt or bandolier?

  4. No speed strips or speed loaders, you used loose rounds or loaded from loops. It was a wonderful day when drop pouches came out and were approved by the brass. I carried the old Dade speedloaders when they first came out, but had to take them off my belt whenever I went into the barrack as they were not approved!! I carried a sap just like the one in the photo in my left boot but they got banned for cutting open too many heads they were so determined to collect them we had to come in and turn them in to the Barrack commander.

    • My 2x Great Grandfather was an Adams County, CO deputy. I have his British Bulldog (like new) and his sap (well used) in my safe.

  7. No field notes? Only one knife? Do you even operate, bro?

    Nah, just kidding. This loadout has class.

  8. My great grandfather spent time in prison for making moonshine. That and the small garden my great grandmother kept was all that they had to take care of 13 children.

    • My grandfather was nominally a plumber, but what he really did was sell copper tubing and make copper kettles for the local bootleggers. When I was a little kid I came upon a odd looking Mercury coupe: primer grey, lowered suspension, aircraft landing lights for headlights, military webbing hanging from holes made with a cutting torch. The interior was stripped except for one seat. There was plywood stretching all the way back to the trunk area. The hood was open and there sat a honking Lincoln engine with a row of down draft carbs . . .

      • A time before comments sections. Comments sections in general have me weeping for the future of humanity.

        • Boy this these people in the comments are wound up. Sarcasm and humor are dying virtues here on ttag… I made a joke about “skull thumpin” with that black jack and some ole’ timer schooled me in proper black jack use…. The comment section never fails to disappoint!!!

  14. Oh yeah, the ‘jack is back. The only pure quill example of “one shot stop”, knockdown power extant. You can take all of the fight out of someone with very little effort and do very little damage IF you know what you’re doing. Nick Nolte “theatrically” rings the bell (way past overkill) with a flat sap, a Bucheimer, “Texan” model, I believe, (like the one Elvis carried), in the film “Mulholland Falls”. Stone brutal clip, but, for Hollywood, technically pretty accurate. -30-

  15. Wow nice old school dump, kudos..Lots of history there, you said the cigars new, hope that comb is to. I mean, loved my grandad but his comb…nah..pretty gross

  16. My grandpa was a bootlegger, he was a shine runner. The family had a still over in Missouri. He quit on account the revenuers got wind of it and he moth balled his Model A. I was snooping out back and got in the barn, man did Grandpa get mad, he had a lot of shit stashed in there. He had a little derringer that run in a slide up his sleeve, old rimfire pistols, sawed off shotguns. He briefly showed them to me, kicked me in the ass and told me “Stay out of this barn.”

    • There’s a video out there of Jr. Johnson talking about his running days. He commented how the trees got close together above 140. The “good ‘ole boys” back then knew a thing or two about building fast motors and fast cars. No wonder driving stock cars was more fun than work.

  17. This dude carries a black jack for skull thumpin’!!!!! Literally in tears!!!! LOLOLOLOLOL

    • Only an idiot would use either a sap or a blackjack on someone’s head. These are effective tools when used by someone with the proper training. It was the improperly trained officer that was responsible for them being banned in law enforcement.

      • Only use the momentum of the tool, never put any English on it, it doesn’t need it. A tap is about right. Never hit anyone anywhere that you wouldn’t hit them with a baton. Kinda “nestle” it in and they will rapidly become unbelievably cooperative. Your results may vary. Only caveat; sometimes, they do throw up. -30-

        • Some comments referring to the use of the sap during an arrest are comical. Do you think I would use a sap on a cooperative arrest? No you use it during a resisting arrest, and I that scenario you pick your target as it becomes available.

  18. My uncle taught me and my brother how to make shine. At the time he was showing us it was cheaper just to go to the state store and buy a bottle. But some of the old timers still preferred doing it yourself and they liked the taste of their product better.

    If memory serves at that time it was legal to make and drink your own. Up to a yearly limit. Exceed that limit or sell any and the law got involved.

  19. I ran shine into Iowa in the 1960s when they had state liquor stores and no liquor by the drink in beer taverns. After college I spent several years in federal law enforcement, but not with Treasury, until I realized that federal law enforcement was just another form of organized crime. Strange life.

    The blackjack and the sap were important and valuable tools for subduing people. The use of such tools after someone was contained was, and is, morally reprehensible. I used a blackjack far more often than I used a gun, but never on someone being questioned. They are far more effective than pepper spray or tazers, and I still believe they have a place in law enforcement.

    • My pops could practically bring you to your knees with a well placed tap to someplace like the funnybone. And I mean a tap. A sharp tap,but still. He would never teach us any more than that though,and I could never do it reliably.

  21. My grandpa and his brother made ‘shine back in the day. It was a survival mechanism where he lived high up in what is now the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. No real jobs to be had except logging and not many of those. Of course he farmed and hunted and fished to feed his family. Anyhow, his brother was killed in a shootout and he used to lament that time in his life and what it cost him. Grandpa was a tough old coot; not exactly touchy feely.

  24. From what I’ve seen lately, the 21st Century is vastly overrated…and where is my flying car?…They promised me a flying car…-30-

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