Is it or isn’t it? This Armero Especialistas “Alfa” is a Spanish-made clone of the S&W .38 Hand Ejector
In an effort to piggyback off another’s good fortune, companies will inevitably rush in with similar-looking but inferior products. There’s a thriving black market for fake designer handbags and jewelry that seem like identical copies of their fancier counterparts — at least until they fall apart at the seams or stain your skin green. Your child’s room may have a mimic hiding in plain sight: perhaps a well-meaning relative bought your son a robot “Transmorpher” instead of an honest-to-God Transformer, or maybe your daughter owns a generic “Ice Princess” masquerading as Princess Elsa from the Frozen movies.
We often make the mistake of thinking knockoff goods are a modern problem. In fact, one of the most well-known firearm brands still carries an interesting reminder of a time when its counterfeits saturated the market. On the side of every modern-era Smith and Wesson revolver, you’ll find what collectors call the “four line” rollmark. The first line reads: “Made in U.S.A.” The final two read: “Smith & Wesson” followed by “Springfield, Mass.” But somewhat oddly, the second line is Marcas Registradas. It’s a Spanish phrase translating to “Registered Marks.”
To understand how the line came to be, I call your attention to the “Spanish clones” of the old .38 Hand Ejectors — the parents of the venerable “Model 10” revolver S&W still sells today. My clone, technically known as an Armero Especialistas, “Alfa” model, proves to be an especially fascinating chameleon.
The Alfa below a K-Frame S&W. A convincing fake, no?
History Lesson
Around the turn of the 20th century, Smith and Wesson’s flagship K-Frame became big news and big business for the Springfield firm. Innumerable Spanish competitors decided they wanted in on the action and began producing a bewildering variety of blatant copies in an effort to meet demand for the awesome guns — and undercut the existing market.
Naturally, S&W found out about this skullduggery and attempted to put a stop to things. While they had some legal success going after American importers on the grounds they were intentionally attempting to defraud consumers, the sovereign nation of Spain essentially told them to pound sand — they didn’t recognize their American trademarks. S&W did eventually secure patents abroad but only after the knock-offs existed on the international market for several decades. S&W added the Marcas Registradas as a way of saying “Stop copying this design!” in a language its counterfeiters would definitely understand but by then, the damage was done.
So what to make of these guns as a whole? First, let’s start with the reality many of the Spanish copies were downright janky. On the low end, there are several design elements that stick out even to the casual observer as being not right at all. It’s common to find design details appearing to be sketched out from memory. Cylinder releases can be of strange teardrop or circular contours, dimensions can look squashed or stretched and often hammers tend to have unusual shapes.
Hilariously, some rollmarks claim the guns are made in “Sprangfeld, Mus.” Others attempt to vaguely match the iconic S&W “Trade Mark” logo with a blobby, sloppily rollmarked forgery. Often, the substandard finishes have worn completely away in the last hundred years and metallurgy is so questionable firing the guns is generally regarded as a bad idea. There are many, many unconvincing fakes.
The infamous Marcas Registradas, still present in modern-make Smiths.
Internally, the Spanish clones are more Colt than Smith, with a massive
V-spring powering the lockwork — and making for a horrific trigger pull.
Some Aren’t Bad
This “Alfa,” however, is a pretty damn successful copy. Every signature contour of the Smith-pattern revolver is mostly intact here down to the smallest of details. The front sight blade, ejector rod, hammer, cylinder release, grip shape, frame dimensions, screw orientation, sight groove and frame detailing are all basically dead ringers for the real thing — it’s almost insidious, really. The barrel appears to be pinned and the quality of walnut stocks are top notch. Even the machining on places like the cylinder ratchet, hand and lockwork is pretty good, and the bluing looks great for being about a century old!
With all this in mind, it helps to remember Spain has a rich history of firearms production stretching back centuries. Consequently, a lot of gunmakers weren’t exactly banging rocks together when they made these guns. There’s clear craftsmanship here — even some “improvements.” For example, many of the Spanish copies used a single beefy V-Spring — not unlike a Colt — in place of three separate springs on the original S&W design. On paper, this made the design slightly less fragile, and in theory, better-suited to military service. The French government went so far as to order many “Spanish Model 92s,” as they were then known, as fighting handguns during World War I.
This robustness, however, has a clear cost. While just about any S&W revolver has a pedigree of being something you can pick up and shoot quite easily, the trigger on this copy flat-out sucks. The double-action mode is easily on par with the worst revolvers I’ve ever shot: the V-Spring stacks for days at the end of an already-stiff travel. But even more impressive in its awfulness is the single-action trigger, which is just as heavy. Mechanically, one spring is both keeping the hammer under tension and pushing the trigger forward, whereas on legitimate S&Ws these are two separate jobs parted out to separate springs.
The effect is a single-action trigger pull in the vicinity of 11 lbs. Yes, 11 lbs. It’s definitely over the 10-lb. limit of two separate trigger gauges I have laying around so the additional pound represents a conservative estimate. I’ll note I can’t attest to mechanical accuracy of the gun: Given my nagging concerns of the metallurgy of any Spanish clone, even one as seemingly well-built as the Alfa, I’ll likely never shoot it. However, given the horrendous trigger, I doubt I’d be fruitful in obtaining any trustworthy data related to how it groups. Also — I have actual Smith and Wessons more deserving of range time.
Surprising quality details abound on Clayton’s Alfa, like a case-hardened hammer and trigger.
Non-visible machining is decidedly inferior, evidenced by this ugly, rough ejector star.
Brutalized screws can be tell-tale signs of softer steels, as much as “Bubba” gunsmithing.
Pop Quiz
Let me end by asking you this: Had I not told you this was a Spanish clone, would you have been fooled? Admittedly, I overpaid to get the best fake I could.
Some eagle-eyed S&W fanatics would have examined the grip logos and the slight, slight difference in the shape of the trigger guard and immediately suspected something was amiss from your standard five-screw M&P. Would-be sleuths also have the internet now, so it’s easier than ever to pull up side-by-side photo references of a legit gun to compare with the copy.
But say you’re a vaquero in the 1920s who goes into a local gun store looking for one of “those new Smith & Wesson revolvers,” and the guy behind the counter says, “Sure, we have those! And at a cheaper price than you were expecting!” Or, maybe you’re an American shooter who wants one of these nifty double-action revolvers with a swing-out cylinder in .38 special. You know, just like the one you shot at your brother-in-law’s last summer — doesn’t the gun behind the counter look just like what you remember? Long story short, I imagine the tricksters at Armero Especialistas were extremely successful at cutting into Smith & Wesson’s business.
Today, the Spanish copies are little more than a historical curiosity. While I would certainly have no qualms taking a well-worn example of an actual S&W .38 Hand Ejector to the range or conscripting it for self-defense if it were all I had, the Spanish clones are a poor choice for sport or social work. That being said, I think every serious S&W collector should have one or two clones in their collection. They are fantastic conversation pieces, not particularly expensive and hearken back to a profoundly interesting time in the company’s history.
The bottom levergun is the elusive .35 Remington straight-gripped Marlin John captured at a
Labor Day weekend sale; the two pistol-gripped versions were added later.
I would’ve been all of 10 years old when Tex Ritter sang the mournful lyrics: “Oh my buckets got a hole in it; Yes my buckets got a hole in it; Oh my buckets got a hole in it …” And who can forget when Jimmy Durante literally kicked the bucket in It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World?
Then there was the more modern bucket scene when Tom Selleck as Matthew Quigley made an unbelievably long shot on a bucket way out yonder with his Sharps. Long before any of these buckets happened I was making lists. I didn’t realize at the time these would be called bucket lists.
“I never did get the Jeep and I was still a teenager when a young girl — the future Diamond Dot — changed my plans for living a solitary life.”
Hard Times
Money did not come easy in the late 1940s, at least not in my family and I often collected old newspapers and pop bottles to make a few pennies. Once I got 25 pennies, I would buy one of the outdoor magazines and read about exotic hunts all over the world. My bucket list consisted of a diagram of my future game room as I planned where each trophy would be hung. This changed virtually every day as my dreams expanded. I made so many lists it was a rare animal I could not recognize and plan where it was to be displayed.
From the beginning, mapping of all my dreamt-about trophies, I expanded to all kinds of lists — future guns I would have, the future places I would live and future adventures I would experience. All of these were bucket lists even though I did not know it at the time. Shortly thereafter we moved from the housing project for returning veterans to a real house where I could have my own bedroom. “This is a great place to hang maps of all the places I would soon hunt around the world,” I thought.
I planned to live by myself in some forest area and I remember drawings of myself, levergun in hand, a loyal malamute by my side and a Jeep parked in the background. I never did get the Jeep and I was still a teenager when a young girl — the future Diamond Dot — changed my plans for living a solitary life.
John’s latest items to be crossed off the bucket list are these SIG SAUER
semi automatic pistols chambered in .357 SIG.
On The List
One searched-after firearm on my bucket list was a Marlin levergun — not just any Marlin but a straight-gripped .35 Remington. In my youth, Marlin issued a special Texan lever action with examples in both .30-30 and .35 Remington but I never saw either one except in pictures. In the early 1980s I started looking for a straight-gripped .35 Remington Marlin levergun with a 20″ barrel and had people around the country looking for me. None were to be found.
At the time we owned acreage in the mountains 100 miles north of town we used for camping with the kids. Eventually, we moved a 70-foot mobile home onto the property and covered it with a snow roof. We had electricity and even a well. It was a great place to just rest and recuperate.
We would often pass a small gun shop on the main highway about 15 miles south of our mountain hideaway. Every weekend when we would go up there, the shop would be closed — at least until one Labor Day weekend. As I drove by I noticed it was not only open but had a large sign saying: “20% off everything this weekend only.” I turned around and quickly went back, feeling I would probably never find anything I really wanted.
I walked into the shop, looked at the rifle racks behind the counter and spotted a straight gripped Marlin levergun. I asked the owner about it and his immediate response was: “Oh, you don’t want that thing. It’s not a .30-30, it is one of those .35 Remingtons.”
I tried not to get too excited as he handed me what he thought was a second class Marlin. I continued to remain very calm as I wrote the check. Finally, the straight-gripped .35 Remington, which had been on my bucket list for decades, could now be crossed off.
Another important bucket list item for John was this Custom King Gunsight Company Colt Single Action.
A King Custom
Another gun I have dreamed about for even longer was a custom sixgun by King Gunsight Co. D.W. King was a rifle marksman who was not satisfied with the sights available, so he decided to make his own. This was in the late 1920s and he formed the King Gun Sight Co. He not only provided rifle sights but did a brisk business applying custom sights to sixguns, especially for target shooters. The King Gun Sight Co. could not survive after the death of the founder and disappeared in the early 1950s.
Looking at pictures of his custom work will show his ideas were later incorporated into factory guns. King also did custom work such as cockeyed hammers and wide triggers both set up for a short action. Elmer Keith had his 7-1/2″ .44 Special Colt Single Action worked over by King and this classic sixgun was one I lusted after as a beginning shooter. In addition to ivory stocks Keith had his fitted with a barrel band front sight, a fully adjustable rear sight, and a King short action.
One of my best friends works in the local Cabela’s Gun Library and I have come up with some very cool sixguns over the years by stopping in occasionally. This trip he had a Colt to show me. Checking the serial number I found it was a Colt Single Action manufactured in 1921. It was chambered in .357 Magnum, which did not arrive until 1935, meaning sometime between 1935 and the beginning of WWII it was sent back to Colt to be converted to the then-relatively-new .357 Magnum with a 5-1/2″ barrel — but this was only the beginning!
The gun had also been turned over to the King Gun Sight Company for extensive custom work. Just as with Elmer Keith’s .44 Special, this one had the short action, cockeyed hammer, wide trigger, and a full-length rib which contained the King mirrored front sight and adjustable rear sight. Another bucket list firearm had been found!
Our bucket list, as well as life, can often be like the bucket Tex Ritter sang about. Sometimes our bucket is full and overflowing, sometimes it’s half-full, and sometimes it just has holes in it. My bucket list definitely has holes in it and I will never complete the whole list, however, I have been blessed beyond all measure and when I pass, the bucket list will still not be complete — but I have certainly enjoyed the trip.
Resurrecting and reissuing a classic handgun is not a new thing. But what Colt did with the Border Patrol double-action revolver was a bit different. Essentially, both the original and the reissue were based on two different models.
The original, or First Issue, was a modified Colt Official Police made for the Border Patrol in 1952. It had a short production life of only 400 to 500 guns, and originals are extremely pricey. A minty 99 percent First Issue—accompanied by the Colt factory letter and original carton—went for $18,400 at a 2013 Rock Island Auction. Essentially, it was a heavy-barreled four-inch .38 Special featuring checkered brown plastic grip panels and stamped “Colt Border Patrol .38 Spec. Heavy Duty.”
The Second Issue was produced from 1970 to 1975 and was slated for both the U.S. Border Patrol and for the general public. Produced in considerably greater numbers than the First Issue (5,356 blued, 1,152 nickel), it was a Colt Trooper Mark III .357—also with a four-inch ribbed barrel. The differences between the Second Issue Border Patrol and the Trooper were minor—primarily a more utilitarian finish and the “Border Patrol” stamp on the barrel.
The similarities were surprisingly analogous to Smith & Wesson’s premium Model 27 and its more service-oriented Model 28 Highway Patrolman. This is not surprising. In those days, competition between our preeminent revolver giants was nothing if not hot and heavy.
Interestingly enough, the Second Issue Border Patrol was built on what Colt referred to as its “J frame”—definitely not to be confused with Smith & Wesson’s snubnose J frame.
Although sufficiently rare enough to command serious money on today’s Colt collector market, this magnum-ized version of the first Border Patrol certainly never replicated the prices an original commands. My test gun, a very clean specimen, comes from my shooting buddy Doug Fee, who fairly recently obtained it at auction for a cool $825.
I shot the Border Patrol from a sandbag rest at 25 yards with three loads—two .38 Special and one .357 Magnum. All were excellent performers. First off, I went to what would have been a state-of-the-art duty load in the early 1970s, which was Remington’s take on the .38 Special FBI load: a 158-grain +P lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoint. It clocked 928 fps on average, and five-shot groups averaged 2.25 inches.
The second .38 load was a Winchester 130-grain FMJ Train and Defend, which averaged 893 fps. This one grouped two inches even.
The lone .357 Magnum entry was a hot one: Hornady’s 140-grain FTX LeverEvolution, which averaged 1,385 fps. Despite the fact that it was a handful, even from the 36-ounce Colt, it grouped just a hair over 1.75 inches
Its true rise to stardom was as the weapon carried by Charles Bronson throughout the tough-as-nails action flick Death Wish.
The compact design of the Milt Sparks-style holster allowed Dick to make it comfortably
through a full day of training drills at the Gunsite Academy in Arizona.
While I have long been fascinated with N-Frame Smith & Wesson revolvers, I came to the party only after seeing the movie “Dirty Harry.” Prior to the movie, all my shooting was done single-action, influenced no doubt by having grown up in the 1950s watching cowboy shows on television.
Do You Feel Lucky?
Once bitten by “the most powerful handgun in the world”-bug, I realized double-action revolvers produced outstanding results when first cocked before pressing the trigger. Even with a superb action job, it was difficult to maintain a precise sight picture throughout the long double-action trigger pull of the large-frame Smiths. Much of my handgun silhouette shooting and big game hunting in Colorado and Wyoming during the ’70s and ’80s was done with a 6.5″ barreled Model 29 but always fired single-action.
As the years went by and Father Time reminded me more frequently I wasn’t indestructible, I recalled perhaps the greatest fight-stopping handguns in American history were .45 caliber, not the least of which was the venerable .45 Colt. These were available in N-Frame Smiths and looked exactly like my .44 Mag Model 29s but were easier to handle with factory loads.
Not to sound like a fairy tale, there came a day on one of my frequent visits to the North County Shooting Center in southern California when I saw my future S&W Model 25 with 4″ barrel in the display case. A brief examination of the gun confirmed the finish, timing and double-action trigger pull were excellent.
Negotiations were over in seconds, but of course California required another 10 days to decide I could take the gun home.
In “Lonesome Dove,” Capt. Augustus McCrea believed the revolver
made the large fighting knife an unnecessary item but Dick thinks
pairing of a big knife and large caliber revolver was rather common —
and comforting — in the old west.
Taking Stock
Except for the action job and the Hogue rubber grips, the gun is “as issued” by Smith & Wesson. The Hogue grips are relatively narrow with an open back and finger grooves. The stippled sides provide enhanced controllability for fast follow-up shots. Most importantly, they fit my hand perfectly with the open back allowing proper finger placement on the wide serrated trigger. If I had ordered the gun from the factory, I would have requested the smooth combat trigger but the double-action pull is so smooth I had no trouble maintaining a good sight picture throughout.
The trigger is slightly narrower than the trigger guard, ensuring it can’t catch the edge of the holster when the gun is returned to leather. “Back in the day” when handgun hunters and recreational shooters fired big bore Smiths single-action, wide checkered trigger shoes became popular as they allowed the trigger to be pressed slightly sideways while still causing the hammer to fall. It made things easier for those with smaller hands to reach the trigger and shoot the guns equipped with the oversize walnut target grips. I heard stories of guns firing when being re-holstered, but I never witnessed such an event — perhaps they occurred when someone mistakenly tried to holster a cocked revolver.
A major factor in successful handgun shooting is seeing the front sight.
The M25’s orange insert helps in the diminished light conditions predators favor.
Hammer-mounted firing pin and absence of “key hole” in the frame
reveal some of the old school features of the Model 25, while the stippled
Hogue grips facilitate shot-to-shot recovery.
Sighting In
The adjustable sights are classic S&W. That’s “classic” mid-20th century, not 19th or early 20th century. The fixed front blade has the orange/red plastic insert for enhanced visibility. The rear sight has a white outline around the notch, can be adjusted for both elevation and windage, and features the long tang mounting into a matching machined slot in the frame’s top strap. Windage and elevation adjustment screws take the same-size screwdriver, something I’ve always appreciated in a gun designed to go afield, not just the range.
The hammer is the old-school wide target spur, aggressively checkered to facilitate manually cocking for single-action fire. On an N-Frame Smith, this is an excellent “win/win” feature. Because it’s not a pocket pistol, you don’t need a reduced size hammer, but when you’re out in winter weather at an informal match or a late fall deer hunt wearing gloves, it’s a real asset.
The firing pin is mounted in the hammer rather than in the frame like the pre-“keyhole in frame” Smith & Wessons. When the trigger is pulled fully to the rear, either double- or single-action, the firing pin protrudes through a small hole in the frame striking the cartridge primer. When the trigger is released, the firing pin retreats/rebounds to a safe position behind the breech face. The firing pin doesn’t actually “float,” but it can move vertically. Spring pressure keeps the firing pin low in the hammer. If for any reason the pin isn’t lined up exactly with the firing pin hole when the hammer falls, the pin strikes an angled ramp in the frame that guides the pin up the ramp to and through the hole and allows it to strike the primer.
I’ve been told a frame-mounted firing pin system is stronger and safer but I’m not sure I buy into this. With the hammer at rest, the vulnerable parts are contained inside the frame, so unless you’re walking around with a cocked revolver, everything is protected. The only advantage I’ve found in a frame-mounted system is it’s easier to block the hammer with your support-hand thumb when decocking the revolver or if a game animal moves after you’ve cocked the gun and you’re waiting briefly for a better shot.
The S&W Model 25 (6-1/2″ barrel version shown) is a classic N-Frame
that handles the .45 Colt without manhandling the shooter. Photo: S&W
Back To Sights
Let’s talk a bit more about the front sight. The top surface of the orange plastic is smooth, meaning it’s quite reflective in bright sunlight. On testing day, the sun was extremely bright, causing a glare off the top of the insert and making it quite difficult to see exactly where the upper edge of the front sight ended so groups tended to expand vertically. While shooting long-range steel in Colorado on a sunlit day, I sprayed the front sight black to cover the orange ramp. When handgun hunting deer, I prefer having the orange strip visible since the most productive hunting is in the lower light levels of early mornings or late afternoons. In addition, it was likely I would be moving in and out of timber.
In a recent writers’ event at Gunsite Academy, I had a chance to work the Fun House with the Model 25. I went through all the drills with the big Smith & Wesson riding comfortably in a Milt Sparks-style strong-side holster shooting DoubleTap 255-grain hard cast semi-wadcutters. Although we “cleared” the house during the daylight hours, changing light conditions became a decisive factor as we went from the bright sunlight of an Arizona afternoon in July to the deeply shaded areas inside the house. As we grow older, our eyes need more light to see well plus we adjust to changing light conditions less quickly.
At first, there were dark targets I couldn’t identify at all. As my eyes adapted, I could see some targets but was unable to determine whether they were holding weapons or not. Once I could tell whether the intruder was armed or not, the orange front sight came into play and I could see well enough to make a decisive shot. Of course the best answer is “always have a flashlight.”
While a speed loader is the fastest way to fully reload a revolver, it
doesn’t allow for partial reloads, the preferred “load as you shoot” technique.
No Regret
While I’ll admit my purchase of the Model 25 was an act of passion rather than careful planning, I would not be reluctant to carry the big revolver full-time for both self-defense and hunting. Had my “attackers” been made of other than paper and steel, there is no doubt in my mind as to the outcome. I don’t think any handgun caliber has decisively ended as many fights over a 150-year time span as the old .45 Colt and most of those were before we learned the advantages of a large meplat making the initial entry.
Old fashioned — yes. Still effective — heck yes!
by Ben Weingarten
Amalgamated Bank, with just five branches across three cities, and a market value lower than the net worth of many an individual hedge fund honcho, would seem an unlikely mover and shaker in the world of Wall Street, let alone Washington, D.C.
Yet last fall, it successfully pressured colossal credit card companies Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to use the financial system to track and report gun purchases. Amalgamated is “more than a bank,” says Michael Watson of the Capital Research Center. “It’s a bank for an ideological movement.”
This “ideological” bank holds $7 billion in deposits and manages or maintains custody of some $51 billion. And while that sounds like a great deal of money, it pales in comparison to financial institutions such as JP Morgan, with its $2.4 trillion in deposits, or the $8.6 trillion in assets managed by BlackRock. But Amalgamated’s outsized influence doesn’t flow from the size of its coffers. Rather, it’s explained by its role as cue to the wider corporate world given the major sources of that money – the Democratic Party, progressive activist groups, and major labor unions.
During political election cycles, such as at the end of the third quarter of 2022, upwards of $1 billion – or 17% of Amalgamated’s total deposits – come from Democratic campaigns, political action committees, and state and national party committees. Amalgamated is the commercial banker for the Democratic National Committee, along with Joe Biden and virtually every other 2020 presidential contender, and congressional leaders like Rep. Nancy Pelosi. All told, Amalgamated serves more than 500 political organizations – in addition to adjacent groups such as Color of Change and the Sierra Club. As the New York Times said of Amalgamated, it is “the left’s private banker.”
The bank also works side-by-side with more than 1,000 unions, including the nation’s second largest union overall, the Service Employees International Union – alongside other behemoth government employee unions including the United Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “[Y]ou might see us out there walking with” picketing workers, to whom Amalgamated provides “strike loans,” the company notes. The bulk of Amalgamated’s trust and investment management business comes from institutional clients, including union pension funds.
Amalgamated’s unusual position and nature distinguish it from other financial institutions that have embraced the Environmental Social and Governance movement (ESG), such as BlackRock and JP Morgan. Its deep ties to the Democratic Party and its support for liberal and leftist political causes may make it a new model for how progressive corporations, politicians, and activists can work together to push favored causes outside the political process.
Richard Morrison, senior fellow at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, said Amalgamated can, at a minimum, “serve as an example for other managers and CEOs who want to make their mark as the most ‘enlightened’ players at the next big management conference or World Economic Forum annual meeting.”
As an admiring Andrew Ross Sorkin, the New York Times financial journalist, put it in a July 2022 conversation with Amalgamated CEO Priscilla Sims-Brown, “We’re at quite a moment, and your bank is a microcosm of so much of it.”
Taking Socialism to the Bank
Amalgamated has deep progressive roots. It was founded in 1923 by and for the socialist textile laborers of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and remains 41%-owned by their successor affiliate, Workers United, an affiliate of the powerful SEIU.
Over the decades, it has amassed an almost exclusively progressive client base to pursue a progressive mission. Its business positions the financial institution “at the vanguard in terms of ESG-aligned policy recommendations,” according to CEI’s Morrison. Amalgamated’s inherently political assets may help explain how it became a lightning rod in the ESG wars likely to intensify under a GOP-controlled House.
Amalgamated’s business flows naturally from its mission to promote “social and environmental justice in-line with stockholder return,” which is codified in its corporate structure as the first publicly traded financial institution to organize as a public benefit corporation. Embodying the tenets of ESG, this designation alerts shareholders that the company will seek “to promote social and environmental justice in-line with stockholder return.”
The bank’s mission is personified by management, such as former CEO Keith Mestrich, previously the CFO of SEIU. Mestrich accelerated Amalgamated’s drive into political banking over the last decade alongside several former Obama administration officials-turned-financial executives.
Amalgamated’s mission can be seen in the company’s internal policies, which include hiring formerly incarcerated workers, covering employees’ travel costs when seeking out-of-state abortions, and raising its minimum wage to $20 per hour, a first for any bank.
It is also reflected in Amalgamated’s position as the financial partner of the charitable Amalgamated Foundation, whose coffers have swelled, fueling its tens of millions of dollars in grants to progressive causes of the kind supported by the bank.
Targeting Guns
Like other progressive asset managers, Amalgamated also engages in shareholder activism, leveraging the power of the shares it holds on behalf of clients to compel corporations to pursue the bank’s favored policies. The Capital Research Center reports that Amalgamated has filed shareholder resolutions with the likes of “Amazon, Lowe’s, PayPal, Netflix, and Smith & Wesson, on everything from board diversity to greenhouse gas emissions to political spending and lobbying” – alongside union affiliates. It also litigates against companies that violate its principles.
Amalgamated has been especially active in promoting anti-gun efforts.
The initiative that landed the bank on the radar of congressional Republicans was originally advocated by Sorkin. In 2018, following several mass shootings, the Times columnist suggested that banks and credit card processors develop gun retailer-specific merchant category codes (MCCs).
When one makes a purchase with a card issued by American Express, Mastercard, or Visa, such transactions are reported to the payment brand with a code that can be used to track a customer’s activities.
“If the credit card companies and banks agreed, they could come up with a series of subcodes that would identify retailers that sold guns under a ‘best practices’ policy — like the policy that Citigroup proposed [restricting gun sales by its clients] … and the ones that don’t,” Sorkin said. “It would … give banks that issue credit cards the opportunity to decide which retailers they wanted to associate with [and] might add pressure on gun retailers to voluntarily follow the ‘best practices’ route.”
In July 2021, Amalgamated took up the cause, petitioning the relevant code-blessing International Organization for Standardization, to create a new credit card code covering standalone gun and ammunition retail stores.
Months later in October 2021, Senate and House Democrats took up companion bills directing Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to collect information from financial institutions to develop “an advisory regarding the reporting of suspicious transactions related to gun violence.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren co-sponsored the Senate legislation. The bills languished, but a new Gun Violence Prevention Caucus convened by Senate Democrats is poised to introduce it again this term.
The International Organization for Standardization would reject Amalgamated’s petition that same October, and deny its appeal in February 2022 – reportedly amid opposition from the major payment brands, whose representatives serve within the group. In June 2022, Amalgamated would apply again. The brands continued to disapprove of the petition. But in September 2022 that all changed.
That month, congressional Democrats led by Sen. Warren sent a letter, endorsed by Amalgamated, to leading payment brand CEOs, urging the companies to get behind the petition, and questioning why they were “obstructing” Amalgamated’s effort. Notably, Amalgamated had banked several of the signatories’ campaigns during the 2022 campaign cycle, including that of the Massachusetts senator.
The standardization body relented, and the major credit card companies adopted the code. Bank president Sims Brown declared victory. “The new code will allow us to fully comply with our duty to report suspicious activity and illegal gun sales to authorities without blocking or impeding legal gun sales,” she said.
Neither Amalgamated nor Sen. Warren’s office responded to RealClearInvestigations’ inquiries. The parties have never publicly discussed any coordination they might have engaged in with respect to the anti-firearms credit card push.
Sorkin, who also did not respond to RCI’s inquiries about his activism, wrote that the creation of the code is “only the beginning” of a broader gun control effort, urging retailers to assign the code to specific registers so payment brands could identify gun-specific purchases, and calling on financial companies to develop algorithms to identify suspicious activity and report it to authorities.
Republican senators wrote in a subsequent letter that the code aimed “to target, surveil and discourage gun and ammunition sellers.” They added: “Your actions were a major step toward targeting law-abiding Americans exercising their right to purchase firearms.”
House Financial Services Committee Republicans argued in a separate letter that “There is a serious risk … this new MCC will be abused with every transaction flagged as suspicious. At a minimum, monitoring the firearms seller MCC … poses a serious risk of circumventing important existing legal restrictions on the creation of a firearm registry.”
The Firearm Industry Trade Association characterized the code as a “stepping stone to watchlists and bans.” Sims Brown has dismissed these concerns.
Climate Collusion
Amalgamated has also taken a leading role in the financial services industry’s push to use its market power to drive the green agenda. In April 2021, the bank reported it had helped launch the Net Zero Banking Alliance. The financial sub-group of a broader, United Nations-backed coalition consists of 119 banks with $70 trillion in assets who have “committed to aligning their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050.”
Last October, attorneys general representing 19 states revealed they were investigating six major U.S. banks over their participation in the alliance – excluding Amalgamated. Then-Missouri Attorney General, now Senator Eric Schmitt, a Republican, said that the states were probing the “banks for ceding authority to the U.N., which will only result in the killing of American companies that don’t subscribe to the woke, climate agenda.”
RCI contacted the offices of several attorneys general leading the probe to ask if Amalgamated had become a subject of their investigation given its role in the alliance. The Missouri AG’s office replied that it had no comment, as the investigation was pending.
Amalgamated has also submitted input on, and formally endorsed, relevant regulations proposed by the Biden SEC, such as its controversial proposed climate risk disclosure rule. Amalgamated was the sole banker for the Biden presidential campaign.
In October 2021, prior to the release of the proposed climate rule, Amalgamated’s chief sustainability officer participated in a meeting alongside like-minded executives with SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, according to Gensler’s public calendar. Neither Amalgamated nor the SEC responded to RCI’s request for information about that meeting. The SEC has been slow to respond to RCI’s related FOIA requests.
Oversight Incoming?
With the Senate in Democrats’ hands, it is unclear if Republican leaders on the Banking and Judiciary Committees who had put Amalgamated on notice last fall for their gun control push will follow through. Their offices did not respond to RCI’s inquiries or would not speak on the record regarding their oversight plans.
Like their Senate counterparts, House Financial Services Committee Republicans were tight-lipped when RCI inquired about any pending Amalgamated probe. A spokesperson for GOP Congressman Andy Barr referred RCI to the press release announcing his chairmanship for the House Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy.
House Republicans in their initial missive to Amalgamated indicated they were keen to understand the extent of the bank’s coordination with activist groups in its credit card code push.
Some critics argue that Amalgamated’s extraordinary business model – leveraging money from Democrats and unions, including those of public sector employees, to pursue policies often championed by those very clients – creates novel conflicts. Morrison told RCI that “to the extent” Amalgamated has “clients who are policymakers … they should be scrutinized over whether the progressive policy changes they’re lobbying for will benefit them … and whether their influential clients exerted any influence to make such changes happen.”
He added, however, that “If other corporations can lobby for lower corporate tax rates, Amalgamated can lobby for gun control measures.”
Richard Painter, the Republican-turned-Democrat former chief legal ethics officer of the George W. Bush administration, said that banks should coordinate with politicians on relevant issues, citing for example a hypothetical effort to collaborate on cracking down on Chinese money laundering in the financial system.
Though there is little to indicate that Amalgamated’s pursuit of progressive causes is disingenuous or rooted primarily in a desire to curry favor with Democrats in ways that will redound to the bank’s bottom line, Painter expressed a general concern that banks often take such positions for the kind of self-serving reasons Morrison raised. Citing Wall Street’s progressive posture on social issues, and now indicted crypto-currency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried’s championing of similar causes, Painter said “these guys, they go left to support the Democrats, do a lot for them, and then behind the scenes they’re looking for less regulation and they do whatever they want in the financial services sector.”
Painter asserted that political banking of the kind Amalgamated engages in is perfectly legal provided a bank does not offer politicians services at below-market rates or coordinate with their campaigns in its political activism, which would raise campaign finance red flags.
Others with whom RCI spoke expressed concerns about whether Amalgamated’s ESG-oriented activism undermined the financial interests of its clients by dampening their returns – which could impact taxpayers if Amalgamated is managing public sector union money.
As a general matter, said Terrence Keeley, a former BlackRock executive and proponent of impact investing critical of ESG investing as currently practiced, “Politics and finance should be like church and state – as far as possible from one another.”
Amalgamated has violated that tenet, but the market hasn’t seemed to mind. Its stock is near an all-time high, notwithstanding potential congressional scrutiny, and a slew of “recent executive resignations … regulatory ‘issues’ preventing an acquisition, a big ‘reclassification’ of assets, and a large share sale” by one of Amalgamated’s major investors — signs of potential peril highlighted by one bearish observer.
Capitalism would seem to have been good to the socialist-founded bank.
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Ben Weingarten is a writer for RealClearInvestigations.
Photo “U.S. Capitol” by Blue Arauz.
