Can anyone id THIS GUN?

J

Joe from N.Y.

Inactive
My friend found this old Colt among his fathers belongings after he died a few years back. He said he has had it since sometime in the '60s. Can anyone tell me what it is and maybe a general idea what it would sell for?

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Colt 51 Navy. It appears that the old patina has been removed, that hurts value but still worth a good sum, 800-1k. Check Gunbroker completed auctions for current prices.
 
Tell your friend not to do anymore polishing of that piece - cylinder roll mark (naval battle scene) seems to be one of the sharpest I've seen in a long time.
The rest of the stampings are in v.good condition also. That is one very nice example.
 
Colt 1851 Navy number 25,706 was made in 1853.
1853 serial numbers started at 20,000.

Yours is a Third Model as made from serial number 4,200 to 85,000.
Value depends on the amount of remaining original finish.
Warn him NOT TO "clean it up". Removing original finish can lower the value by thousands of dollars.

Here's the values from the Blue Book. These will probably be low.
20% original finish....$1,100
30%....$1,200
40%....$1,600
50%....$2,000
60%....$3,000
 
I never saw one with a 5 digit number on the cylinder. I didn't think Colt used anything but the last four digits of the serial number. All I've ever seen were like that anyway.
 
That's a real shame. AFAIK, unless it was some sort of essentially unique custom order and you can provide written provenance of that from Colt, that refinishing pretty much eliminated whatever potential collector interest (read:$$$) it might've generated given its overall condition and even traces of the original finish.

Dfariswheel's post will give you an idea of how much it might've brought otherwise. I seriously doubt that it would bring as much as 2/3 of the 20% figure in its current state. My condolences.
 
In replying to the same OP on another forum, I believed the gun was blued and said it looked like a modern tank blue. I was obviously wrong, but anyway it is not the original finish, and the gun shows all the signs of having been polished and refinished.

I also said that the barrel marking appears to be either "enhanced" or spurious and that the serial numbers are faked. I am not sure the gun is even original; it could be a repro faked up to look like an original, but even if it is original, it has little value since it has been worked over.

Jim
 
In those later pics the heavy polishing is much more evident. Again, MHO is that it is a repro faked up with a spurious barrel marking and faked serial number markings. (Most repros have a single number on the frame in a modern font. Fakers often remove that and put on numbers in the Colt manner.) Anyway I don't believe it is original and doubt it has any real value.

And yes, faked up repros have been around ever since there were repros. The first actual repros (as distinct from contemporary counterfeits) were imported in the 1959-1960 period for the Civil War centennial, and have been coming in ever since. And they were being used as a basis for fakes about a microsecond after they hit the market.

Jim
 
quote: "In the first set of pics, the inside of the cylinders looked awfully sharp and clean too. "

The inside of the cylinders are dirty, and look like burnt straw has stuck to the inside of the chambers. I just cant get my camera to show that though.
 
I don't think the barrel marking was put on by Colt either. Some letters are slanted or out of line and the "dash" at the front end is slanted. Roll stamps just don't do things like that.

My only puzzlement is why someone went to a lot of trouble to take a repro, alter the markings well enough to fool most folks, then plate the gun. Anyone who knew enough about old Colts to fake that address and serial numbering would know that the 1851 Navy was made with blued barrel and cylinder and color case hardened frame and was never overall plated. I wonder if there were not two people involved, at different times - one produced a pretty good fake, then the other wanted a plated gun and didn't care what it was.

Jim
 
"I don't think the barrel marking was put on by Colt either. Some letters are slanted or out of line and the "dash" at the front end is slanted. Roll stamps just don't do things like that."
Click to expand...

That dash is actually a wedge shape, with the point facing the left. My camera didn't get a good shot, and the chrome job filled in some very thin engravings, such as COLT PATENT on the left side of the frame under the cylinder.

(Thanks for the lesson on quoting)
 
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