Not a matter of selling at the highest possible price- these will simply not be cheap to develop or produce.
You can't expect a 1903 design made to 1903 quality standards to sell for $500 today, even with modern machinery.
You're looking at start-up costs in developing an entirely new gun from the ground up.
No drawings, no plans, has to be reverse-engineered.
Drawings have to be done. CNC programs have to be created.
Then the costs of acquiring and/or adapting machinery & tooling.
Decisions have to be made re in-house or outsourced, if outsourced it takes time to find a competent small parts fabricating vendor, money to establish a contractual run, and frequently quite a bit of time to tweak the individual part to desired specs from the vendor.
Finishes are another matter. If the maker doesn't have in-house facilities to polish, blue, or Parkerize, the parts will have to be sent out, meaning additional costs.
Colt can't afford it.
It's a fairly substantial project (if quality is a key factor in the end result) for a smaller outfit.
Those who've been wishing for a 1903 bring-back were very naïve if they expected such a pistol (if done right & done in the US) to sell for anything under a grand.
Denis