vetteboy79
Member
I'm new here, searched for a while and it seemed like you guys are a knowledgeable group regarding these revolvers. I'm no stranger to modern firearms but I haven't gotten much into the historical Colt arms until, well, last night.
My grandfather passed away last July, and my grandmother recently re-found this after going through some old moving boxes. It almost went to a buy-back but my father let her know I might be interested in having it. Of course! So last night I brought this home.
Also came with this box of ammo, which had 7 of them replaced by .32 S&W. The remaining S&W .32 Longs were wrapped in the paper towel. Not sure why. Numbers match on the original Colt box too.
So the supposed story behind this revolver is that my grandmother's sister's husband worked for the Park Service, and carried this while on duty. At some point in the late 50's/early 60's my grandfather had a job collecting insurance premiums from tenements in a nasty part of Cleveland, so he got this gun from his brother-in-law to carry as protection. Later he had a trucking route from Cleveland to NY and taught my grandmother how to use it while he was on the road. Eventually they moved and later retired near us in NJ and it sat in storage until last night.
The weird part is, the serial number shows up as a 1977 model (#11xxxR), but I thought by that point they were well into the 3rd generation with the different style grip and the shrouded ejection rod. I found a few scattered posts on here from people regarding 3rd-generation-era serial #'s with 2nd-generation features, but nothing conclusive about how or why that might've happened. As mentioned in those other threads, I'm also curious about what that means as far as the value, but I have no intentions of selling this, ever.
This also calls into question my grandmother's recollection of where it came from, but I'll track down that story another day.
Any insight would be appreciated! And thanks for providing this great resource...definitely seems like a community I can learn a lot from and hopefully contribute to at some point.
(next to my other handgun...I still love my Walther, but the Colt action feels so nice!)
My grandfather passed away last July, and my grandmother recently re-found this after going through some old moving boxes. It almost went to a buy-back but my father let her know I might be interested in having it. Of course! So last night I brought this home.
Also came with this box of ammo, which had 7 of them replaced by .32 S&W. The remaining S&W .32 Longs were wrapped in the paper towel. Not sure why. Numbers match on the original Colt box too.
So the supposed story behind this revolver is that my grandmother's sister's husband worked for the Park Service, and carried this while on duty. At some point in the late 50's/early 60's my grandfather had a job collecting insurance premiums from tenements in a nasty part of Cleveland, so he got this gun from his brother-in-law to carry as protection. Later he had a trucking route from Cleveland to NY and taught my grandmother how to use it while he was on the road. Eventually they moved and later retired near us in NJ and it sat in storage until last night.
The weird part is, the serial number shows up as a 1977 model (#11xxxR), but I thought by that point they were well into the 3rd generation with the different style grip and the shrouded ejection rod. I found a few scattered posts on here from people regarding 3rd-generation-era serial #'s with 2nd-generation features, but nothing conclusive about how or why that might've happened. As mentioned in those other threads, I'm also curious about what that means as far as the value, but I have no intentions of selling this, ever.
This also calls into question my grandmother's recollection of where it came from, but I'll track down that story another day.
Any insight would be appreciated! And thanks for providing this great resource...definitely seems like a community I can learn a lot from and hopefully contribute to at some point.
(next to my other handgun...I still love my Walther, but the Colt action feels so nice!)