Ancient history, bitter memories

Unfortunately, Rico no longer has copies (they were pre-electronic) of the letters exchanged between him (as a much younger man) and the Franklin Mint over their Official Badges of the Great Western Lawmen series. They offered them (but don't any more) through some front operation called the Western Heritage Museum, and advertised them in Old West magazines, which is how Rico got suckered in.

They seemed impressive: Pat Garrett, Sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico; Special Deputy Sheriff, Sonoma County, California; Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific Railroad detective; Deputy Sheriff, Custer County, Montana; Deputy Marshal, Indian Territory; Deputy US Marshal; Texas Rangers; Captain, Colorado Rangers; Arizona Territorial Rangers; Dallas Stoudenmire, City Marshal of El Paso, Texas; and Fred Lambert, Town Marshal of Cimarron, New Mexico.

The only problem was, the more Rico tried to dig into the history of these badges, the more ephemeral they became. He got, from the Mint, the 'official' datasheets (which he still has), but when he wrote to one of the museums that (according to the Mint) had purportedly 'loaned' their badge for the casting, they insisted they'd done no such thing, and asked for copies of all the correspondence so that they could sue the Mint.

Rico says he ended up not spending his money on any of the badges, but it's still a sad tale of greed and ignorance...

This badge is in his collection, but it at least matches a real one in the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco (and you can easily purchase it by going here and ordering one):