Original Colt 1860 army...Barrel marking Colt New York city?

[fireman1]

My little local gunshop has a Colt 1860 Army that might be for sale on Monday. Gun is mismatched, frame/barrel but the grip matches the frame. It is not obviously US marked. No cartouche on the grips, no US frame...if they even did that back then. There are some small inspection stamps that might be military though. The biggest thing to me was the barrel marking was Colt New York City. There was more on the barrel but that is all I remember. No pictures.

Is the NYC address legit? Should it be US marked? Any thing else I should look for? Value?

Thanks

 

[Brokenbear]

Well sorry you have not had any feedback on your question as it is a fair set of questions ...
I know very little about Colt originals and do not qualify in the least as an expert but New York is an appropriate nomenclature on the barrel address as well as Col. SamL Colt
Complete Serial number usually occurs on both the mainframe and gripframe where they meet in front of the trigger guard ....last two digits(or 4) on arbor and wedge but not always ..4 last digits on butt and cylinder in the rectangle box surrounded by the engraved scene on the outside cylinder
Lower case but mostly upper case single letter stamps MAY indicate Gov't inspection/acceptance with lower case b or s and upper case H but these were sometimes added for nefarious reasons ..stamp location most often in the gripframe and different inspectors "seemed" to have preferred positions ..

Not all GI 1860's had cartoche marks on the grips ..not all GI 1860's had 3 screw main frame screw pattern nor did all GI 1860's have the 4 screw main frame pattern

Most but not all had progressive rifling as I "think" possibly toward the end the progressive rifling was dropped

Now I am hoping for you someone jumps all over my comments ..gently makes corrections where I may be off the mark but the best thing you can do before Monday is get on GunBroker.com and look at every picture of every 1860 Colt Army you can find and get your eye trained to see what the real deal looks like ...

Bear

 

[Stantheman86]

My little local gunshop has a Colt 1860 Army that might be for sale on Monday. Gun is mismatched, frame/barrel but the grip matches the frame. It is not obviously US marked. No cartouche on the grips, no US frame...if they even did that back then. There are some small inspection stamps that might be military though. The biggest thing to me was the barrel marking was Colt New York City. There was more on the barrel but that is all I remember. No pictures.

Is the NYC address legit? Should it be US marked? Any thing else I should look for? Value?

Thanks

I'm not an expert but I have read that only the 1860's parted out and rebuilt after the Civil War and reissued on the Frontier were marked with a U.S.
I'm not sure when this was done, a mismatched 1860 might well have been an Indian War gun or it might be a beater someone cobbled together with old spare parts.

Basically, the Ordnance Dept had relatively low numbers of 1860's left, a lot were lost or captured, and a lot grew legs and walked away after the war was over. So all of the hard used 1860's were broken down, good parts separated from worn parts, and serviceable guns assembled from these parts. There is something with the Buffalo Soldiers using these mismatch, US marked 1860's well after the 1873's were being issued because the segregated Units got the new stuff last.

The New York Colt address is correct

 

[Rich44]

 

[fireman1]

Well sorry you have not had any feedback on your question as it is a fair set of questions ...
I know very little about Colt originals and do not qualify in the least as an expert but New York is an appropriate nomenclature on the barrel address as well as Col. SamL Colt
Complete Serial number usually occurs on both the mainframe and gripframe where they meet in front of the trigger guard ....last two digits(or 4) on arbor and wedge but not always ..4 last digits on butt and cylinder in the rectangle box surrounded by the engraved scene on the outside cylinder
Lower case but mostly upper case single letter stamps MAY indicate Gov't inspection/acceptance with lower case b or s and upper case H but these were sometimes added for nefarious reasons ..stamp location most often in the gripframe and different inspectors "seemed" to have preferred positions ..

Not all GI 1860's had cartoche marks on the grips ..not all GI 1860's had 3 screw main frame screw pattern nor did all GI 1860's have the 4 screw main frame pattern

Most but not all had progressive rifling as I "think" possibly toward the end the progressive rifling was dropped

Now I am hoping for you someone jumps all over my comments ..gently makes corrections where I may be off the mark but the best thing you can do before Monday is get on GunBroker.com and look at every picture of every 1860 Colt Army you can find and get your eye trained to see what the real deal looks like ...

Bear

Bear, thanks for the info. That is more than I knew before now! I will look for those inspection marks.

 

[fireman1]

I'm not an expert but I have read that only the 1860's parted out and rebuilt after the Civil War and reissued on the Frontier were marked with a U.S.
I'm not sure when this was done, a mismatched 1860 might well have been an Indian War gun or it might be a beater someone cobbled together with old spare parts.

Basically, the Ordnance Dept had relatively low numbers of 1860's left, a lot were lost or captured, and a lot grew legs and walked away after the war was over. So all of the hard used 1860's were broken down, good parts separated from worn parts, and serviceable guns assembled from these parts. There is something with the Buffalo Soldiers using these mismatch, US marked 1860's well after the 1873's were being issued because the segregated Units got the new stuff last.

The New York Colt address is correct

Stan,

I'm surprised that there were relatively few 1860's left after the ACW. You would think that there would be many. However, I bet you are correct and many walked off.

The gun does have the look of a rebuit/reworked gun. Fits well, tight etc. Patina is all the same but of course it could have been cobbled up 75 years ago and looked like that.

 

[fireman1]

View attachment 207280

That is it.

 

[fireman1]

Thanks for the info guys. I will get a better/longer look at it tomorrow. I might be able to get it for around $750.

 

[Stantheman86]

Stan,

I'm surprised that there were relatively few 1860's left after the ACW. You would think that there would be many. However, I bet you are correct and many walked off.

The gun does have the look of a rebuit/reworked gun. Fits well, tight etc. Patina is all the same but of course it could have been cobbled up 75 years ago and looked like that.

Going from memory, after the fire of 1864, which destroyed most of the machinery, I can't recall if the successor to Sam Colt , after he died, retooled and started production again after the war or if they assembled them from remaining parts throughout the 1860's.

After the Cessation of Hostilities and US troops were mustering out, Enlisted men and Officers had the option to buy their sidearms if they were issued a Govt owned revolver but in all the mass chaos of millions of men who's contracts were up , going home, or non-career Officers going back to their Civilian jobs , a good number probably just took their 1860 Army and other wheelguns home because there was really no way to enforce turning them in. I mean, I'd have just taken it if I were an Officer in 1865 that was getting out...... I just fought a war, and I have a Govt issued .44 Colt, it's mine now...........

Production is listed as "1860-1873" so I assume the Colt plant made more after they rebuilt , to some degree but there's the whole thing with the Rollin-White patent and by 1870 Colt started playing around with cartridge guns made from leftover percussion parts.

I'm sure someone knows more. Colt's wife was heavily involved in the rebuilding and his partner took over after Sam died.

 

[Scott Jones]

I have a mismatched 1860, why I got if for a good price. Frame and cylinder have same number, barrel & triggerguard another. Barrel does have progresssive rifling. Colt's records were lost in the 1864 fire, but collectors have managed to make a fairly decent list of manufacturing years; using the latest list, both serial numbers were probably made in 1863; I always envision a couple cavalry guys sitting at the campfire cleaning their revovlers and getting the parts mixed up.

 

[nick_1]

I suspect it may have been similar to how modern military handles ordinance. After an engagement all the discarded guns are picked up and sent to the ordinance guys who then triage them taking parts from damaged guns and making serviceable guns from the parts pile. same thing if you have a problem with your gun and try to get it fixed the army is going to swap parts out to make it work or they will take yours, issue you a new repaired one and then rebuild your old one from the parts bin and put it back in service.

 

[springfield art]

Doesn't have to be 'military' to be desirable! What nick_1 said applies; in WW1 & 2, etc., no one worried about "matching bolt" numbers (on foreign guns) as long as it worked OK. I'm glad that our Ord. Dept. never numbered every part like Germany! Photos from WW1 show behind the lines maint. guys with hot barrels of fluids, dumping in tons of bolt to clean after trench service. No one bothered too much to re-up with the orig. gun. Same thing with bayonets & scabbards; if you lost the bayonet, you simply got another from somewhere and stuck it in your scabbard. Scott Jones is correct, too! And let's not forget Tuco in the famous scene from the Eastwood movie where he switches parts by eye, not worrying about the "stinkin'" serial numbers (Fist Full of Dollars)

 

[springfield art]

Going from memory, after the fire of 1864, which destroyed most of the machinery, I can't recall if the successor to Sam Colt , after he died, retooled and started production again after the war or if they assembled them from remaining parts throughout the 1860's.

After the Cessation of Hostilities and US troops were mustering out, Enlisted men and Officers had the option to buy their sidearms if they were issued a Govt owned revolver but in all the mass chaos of millions of men who's contracts were up , going home, or non-career Officers going back to their Civilian jobs , a good number probably just took their 1860 Army and other wheelguns home because there was really no way to enforce turning them in. I mean, I'd have just taken it if I were an Officer in 1865 that was getting out...... I just fought a war, and I have a Govt issued .44 Colt, it's mine now...........

Production is listed as "1860-1873" so I assume the Colt plant made more after they rebuilt , to some degree but there's the whole thing with the Rollin-White patent and by 1870 Colt started playing around with cartridge guns made from leftover percussion parts.

I'm sure someone knows more. Colt's wife was heavily involved in the rebuilding and his partner took over after Sam died.

Imagine the value of the Confederate revolvers the officers could keep after Appomattox!~

 

[springfield art]

I have a pal who has one of the Colt revolvers returned to the Arsenal to have the bbl. shortened for the Span-Am War, called 'Artillery Models'; it has the Officer's name & Reg't. engraved on the back-strap, and the officer is listed in the Reserve records of that time. A valuable black-powder Colt! My pal got a factory letter and will eventually auction it at Morphy's or a similar hi-end auction.

 

[Stantheman86]

I have a mismatched 1860, why I got if for a good price. Frame and cylinder have same number, barrel & triggerguard another. Barrel does have progresssive rifling. Colt's records were lost in the 1864 fire, but collectors have managed to make a fairly decent list of manufacturing years; using the latest list, both serial numbers were probably made in 1863; I always envision a couple cavalry guys sitting at the campfire cleaning their revovlers and getting the parts mixed up.

There was probably a lot of armorer-level parts swapping and salvaging parts from damaged or clapped out guns. They didn't care, they just kept guns working

I had read that they sometimes cleaned revolvers in boiling water after field stripping them, no doubt guns just got reassembled sometimes especially if they were Govt issued guns. They were just another piece of equipment that had to be maintained

 

[fireman1]

 

[fireman1]

 

[fireman1]

Here are some pics I was able to grab. It was in the back room of the gunshop so the light is not the best.

The frame is marked, cylinder also. Frame marking looks correct. Cylinder engraving is well worn. There are some letters/numbers on it but the scene is well worn.

 

[Boston Bill]

I have a mismatched 1860, why I got if for a good price. Frame and cylinder have same number, barrel & triggerguard another. Barrel does have progresssive rifling. Colt's records were lost in the 1864 fire, but collectors have managed to make a fairly decent list of manufacturing years; using the latest list, both serial numbers were probably made in 1863; I always envision a couple cavalry guys sitting at the campfire cleaning their revovlers and getting the parts mixed up.

How does one know if a barrel has progressive rifling?

 

[TFoley]

How does one know if a barrel has progressive rifling?

Gain-twist, or progressive rifling, increases the twist rate as the projectile moves down the bore. It is claimed that gain-twist rifling imparts less angular momentum to the bullet, thus reducing the tendency of the bullet to drift in the direction of the twist.