Kirk and Bannerman and a couple other big players in military surplus arms and equipment sales were friendly competitors, and reportedly would connive before an auction to not bid against each other, but to have one bid on certain lots and then share with the others.
My understanding of the WSK story is this, and I would welcome corrections:
The elder Kirk was succeeded by his son, William Stokes Kirk Jr in the early 20th century and continued the business probably into the 1940s or so. Eventually his two daughters inherited the business and the "old ladies" ran it into the 1960s.
I think I actually visited the store once around 1960-61, in a sketchy section of old Philly. It was very small, very dark and dingy with stuff stacked deep and not priced, and almost all militaria not gun stuff, at least what was out for people to see. I did not buy anything.
Somewhere around then the business closed and the massive inventory was split between two sisters (Mary and Kathleen) and their respective husbands, Joe DeChristopher of Feasterville, PA, and Ross Kircher of Gettysburg, PA. The DeChristopher operation has passed on to become "Grandpa's Gun Parts." I'm not sure what happened to Ross Kircher's inventory, other than he was a regular at Baltimore up until his death in 2021.
Here are some trapdoor related pages from WSK catalog 20B which seems to be ascribed to 1920, 1924 or 1928.
- 1wsk.jpg (192.6 KiB) Viewed 208 times
- 2wsk.jpg (187.75 KiB) Viewed 208 times
- 3wsk.jpg (216.68 KiB) Viewed 208 times
