October 30 - November 2, 2018 Firearms, Militaria, & Sporting
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/30/2018
The Kopec letter of 2015 lists this revolver as having been Ordnance inspected by Lieutenant David A. Lyle and during the entire 1880’s period by David F. Clark; he could not locate this serial number in the National Archives. Since this revolver was shipped from Colt’s on April 4th, 1880 he looked for records of shipments from April of 1880, there were no issues until May 24th when the State of Florida received 50 revolvers. In 1881, 1,112 revolvers were issued to various other states. He comments that this fine revolver sports the aging Henry Nettleton barrel address that was on its last leg and was superseded with a die that became standard throughout the 1880’s. This is one of the few revolvers to have the double lines under the “O” of “Co”. The “DFC” stamps of David Clark can be found on the barrel, frame, right grip panel and cylinder. Left grip is stamped “1880” with “DAL” in oval for David A. Lyle. Right panel in rectangle with “DFC” for David Clark. Has the donut ejector. There is still some brilliant blue in housing recess. Barrel is gun metal grey with razor sharp legends. Cylinder has flashes of blue in flutes but is basically a blue-grey patina. Frame is stamped “US”. Screws are near perfect retaining some original nitre blue. Frame colors have darkened out to a grey-brown patina. Nice case colors evident on hammer. Colt barrel legend is sharp with no lines. Indexes and locks up like a vault. Rifling exhibits sharp lands and slightly frosted grooves, but sharp. Screws are near perfect.