I know the White Elk ’73 very well.  Bob Shook was a close friend and John Fox and I are neighbors. Bob and I traded back and forth for years before he passed away.  He was a collector of Colt SA’s and vintage cowboy gear.  I still have several of the items I traded him out of.  I miss him and think about him often.  I remember when he got the gun from Ray. For an Indian gun, the condition was great.  Lots of bright blue even on the reciever. I remember that one of the screws (dust cover screw I think) was gone and a copper saddlers rivet peened over in it’s place.  Evy Morgan bought the remainder of Bob’s collection, but I lost track of this rifle after John sold it.  Really nice to read the article about a gun I held many times.

Winchester nut said
I’m finally able to get back to the forum.  The eye of Harvey went right over our ranch, twice, and it is an absolute mess.  Lots of trees and limbs down and barns leveled.  All can be rebuilt and thank God no loss of life.  About my 73′ with the possible Indian markings that I posted pictures of, I notice that one of the pictures that is on page 49 of the latest magazine issue looks one of the marks on my gun.  Its the horseshoe mark which I was told meant horse raids.  The horseshoe mark in the magazine is a little different cause of the slashes down the right side of it but the magazine says it means take many horses.       

What you would need to do is take real good high resolution pictures of the gun with detailed pictures of any marks. Cell phone pictures don’t cut it. I use a digital SLR camera with different lenses to get the closeups and use plenty of light. I take multiple shots with the light from different directions to catch the any shadows of of the marks when they are faint. Send the pictures to him and see if he see anything. If he does he would need the gun to do a letter on it since pictures don’t show all the marks. There will also be a fee for the letter.

Bob