Identifying a Colt Paterson

[magnus wiberg]

This may be out of frames of the forum, but perhaps someone could help me, as we have no authorities on the Paterson Colt here in Sweden.
I have in my possession a Colt Paterson revolver that looks very authentic and old to me.However, it does not have the Paterson adress on top of the barrel, but I know that a great number of them,perhaps assembled after the Colt bankruptcy, were unsigned on the barrel.
I woul like to get in touch with the leading authority or expert on the Paterson Colt, to learn if mine is an original or a very old copy. Perhaps, someone here on the forum could put me in touch with this expert!

 

[MacRob46]

How about posting some detail photos. Do not know how many Colt experts we have on the forum but someone may be able to help. It does need to be seen in order to tell you anything.

A lot of Colt Patersons have been faked over the years too so there is always that possibility. Most of them are bad enough to be easily identified.

 

[DOUBLEDEUCE 1]

You might look at Colt Country/ Home of the Almighty Colt forum. It's all about Colts. :hmm:

 

[Col. Batguano]

Look at James D Julia's recent auctions. Their pictures might give you some insight. They've had a couple of original Pattersons sell through there. If what you have is truly an original piece, it's potentially worth many 10's of thousands of USD's (to the right buyer).

 

[Robert an saa fan]

Have you checked the screw thread size to find out if the screws are metric (metric size screws would almost certainly mean the Paterson is a copy or aged replica)?

 

[Zonie]

Standardized thread sizes weren't in existence until after 1864 but I would think a Colt or a Patterson would have threads with major diameters in the inch system.

Often, the major diameter of a male thread is slightly smaller than the fractional size of the thread.

 

[TFoley]

Standardized thread sizes weren't in existence until after 1864 but I would think a Colt or a Patterson would have threads with major diameters in the inch system.

Often, the major diameter of a male thread is slightly smaller than the fractional size of the thread.

Just slightly OT, but over here in the North of England a few years back, in the attic of a poor old lady's tenement house, a sealed wooden box revealed, when opened, a totally unused/unfired presentation grade Colt Paterson. It came to light when her family were clearing out her little house. Complete in every respect, including the matching five-spout powder dispenser, bullet moulds and all tools, it looked as though it had been made that day. It was profusely engraved, too, as befitted its status as a VERY high end personal gift from Saml. Colt. It was taken into care and fully documented by Colt before being auctioned.

The old lady had never mentioned it in her entire life, and did not have a lifestyle commensurate with shooting anything, being pretty poor, a former manual worker with her state pension and nothing else on which to live. It was then, and remains, a complete mystery.

It sold at Bonhams to an undisclosed American collector for just over $300,000.

tac