April 11-13, 2023 Firearms and Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/11/2023
Manufactured in 1898 and sold to the San Francisco Police Department. There was a total of 401 guns in this shipment and they all have their own serial number range (S.F.P. 1 - 401). Full blue finish gun with plain walnut stocks and crescent buttplate. Full-length tube magazine. Round barrel with a Rocky Mountain front sight and a sporting rear sight. The hammer is case colored. Colt 2-line address on top of the barrel and the Rampant Colt logo on the left side of the receiver. All stampings are crisp and bright. According to the consigner, the history of the gun is as follows: "San Francisco Police Department sold the Colt Lighting rifles to Al Markel (Markel’s Gun Store) in the 1970s when SFPD upgraded their arsenal to Colt M16 rifles. My father, Wally Hirsch was good friends with Al Markel and Al sold him the Colt Lightning rifle. Arlo Smith was the San Francisco District Attorney from 1980 to 1996. Sometime during the 1980s Arlo Smith's house was firebombed by radicals. Following the bombing, Arlo had his house guarded at night by his District Attorney’s Office Investigators for a few weeks. My Godfather Woody Herve (Chief of DA’s Office Investigators) and my father Wally Hirsch (Senior Investigator DA’s Office) both carried this Colt Lighting when they guarded Arlo Smith’s house. The house was located in San Francisco, on a small street of Parnassus Ave, near the UCSF Medical Center. This rifle has been in my family since the 1970s when my father acquired it from Al Markel." CONDITION: Gun retains 85% of the original factory-applied blue finish with just a few slight dings and abrasions in the blue finish. Front and rear stocks show some slight handling and storage marks. Bright and shiny bore with sharp lands and grooves.
Model
Lightning Magazine Rifle