A Real Early Replica'51 Navy

G

Griswold

New member
Came across a "semi-collector" piece - a very early early Navy Arms '51 Navy, by Uberti, marked -NAVY ARMS CO.- on the top barrel flat where the usual colt marks go, same marks on frame where the "Colt's Patent" stamp usually is. Rear hammer sight is square, not a "V." Cylinder is plain, no scene. Came with the cardboard box, w/Navy Arms label for "New Model Navy Revolver", "Model Yank". Box is stiff cardboard, small, fake woodgrain, kind of like a Colt SA box of the late 50's -60's. It has a copy of the old Colt instruction card glued in the lid. SN on the gun was below 1250, and it bore no Italian proofs (visible, anyway, as I've yet to totally strip the gun). As it has no production codes on it, what age are we talking here? Since Uberti was sold, they don't offer the "date your gun" feature any more.

Griswold
 
The Italian Gardone & Brescia proof houses started marking guns in 1951, I believe. If you don't find any such marks it could be that it is earlier than that. I don't know when Uberti started making Colt repros - I thought it was in the early 60's, which means it should have proof marks. But...

Another possibility is that the gun has been altered - recutting the hammer sight notch to a square shape is not uncommon, and I have heard of people removing the date and proof marks. That seems unlikely though, if they left the "Navy Arms" imprinting, so it sounds like a genuine early repro.

There is a group of people who collect repros as a hobby. They would be very interested in you find and could be very helpful in identifying it. I'll see if I can find their web site and post it here.

Got it: the Replica Percussion Revolver Collectors Association, RPRCA.
http://rprca.tripod.com/
 
Last edited:
Certainly the repro market, and the opportunity for the "Yank" trademark was greatest during the early 1960s for the Civil War Centennial. (They sold a "Reb" with round dragoon type barrel, too.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top