I bought this old Patterson

I am no Paterson expert, but I have never seen or heard of one with the barrel marking individually stamped in modern font block letters. They are all marked in script letters; the 7" barrel guns were roll stamped, while the others appear to have been hand engraved. I think it safe to say that no matter who made that gun, Sam Colt had nothing to do with it.

Did they make fake Patersons in 1840? I don't know, but they made them at least as early as the 1930's and have been making them ever since. A fellow named Penrod Otis Musser worked in the 1930s and 1940s and did such a good job of making copies that his guns are sought after by today's collectors for themselves, and actually are rarer than real Patersons, though not as valuable.

There have been, as you know, Italian copies, but before that there were copies made in Belgium and Spain. While the makers claimed to be making innocent repros, many of those later were "aged" and passed off as original. But even there, the ones I have seen had the script barrel lettering and got it right, although I saw a picture of a "one off" fake with "Patterson" on the barrel. Many were made in small shops in the hope of turning a quick buck, and I think the gun shown is one of those. It appears to be a rather bad fake, not even rating as a good reproduction. Incidentally, the original gun did use those four pin nipples; a few repros have used standard nipples.

Still, at the right price, those fakes are interesting, and if done right will serve to show the way the Paterson was put together, which is of interest in itself.

Jim
 
John Ehlers took the stock of parts and all from Colt and sold Patersons in hardwasre stores and the like. Maybe some of those were marked differently once he got them?
I'd look at the screw threads and the diameter of the screw holes in case the screws were re-made and the holes enlarged.
The places the serial number would be stamped would be filed off to get a new fake number there. That could be measured...the thickness of the parts where the original numbers would have been filed off (if it had Italian derial numbers).
A gun that rusted with the pits all over it wouldn't have any cylinder scene left on it I'd think.
I'd check the serial number against what numbers are known to exist. The number could be a faked missing number like it finally surfaced. You know...if someone faked the gun they wouldn't use a number that was already known to exit.
It would be cool even if the gun was a real old repro. I never have seen any really old repos anywhere so they must be rare.
MadCrate...have you taken the gun apart?
Wood hard to fake? Put it in oil...bake it in a hot oven to dry it back out...till it gets crackes and all.....
Old wood is usually shrunk some. That's an indication.
Anyway...it's a cool gun MadCrate!
 
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