I'm just curious how you know for certain the gun was never re-nickeled? I do see that every pin looks perfect, not a screw appears to have been turned, so refinish is very unlikely, but . . . Also, when you say it looks unfired, how do you know that? I see a well defined turn line on the cylinder and bet it has been to the range over the last 125 years. Nothing to take away from the revolver's appearance, but just sayin' . . .

The goal of the 1800's gunmakers was to make parts durable. The best way to do that was to case harden parts subject to wear. The case hardening process changed the chemistry of a very thin layer of surface steel, giving it a very high resistance to wear. The byproduct of case coloring was a change in the color of the part. Some would have the classic mottled appearance while others would have a mottled blued appearance. The process for making springs also give a similar appearance by the simple use of heat and water & oil quenching. The color was not so important to the gunmakers of the time, since that was not their goal, so colors varied widely. It seems that case coloring either wears to base metal or oxidation mutes the color over time. The results are that many case colored parts seem to turn to a medium of dark grey over time.

As more carbon was added to make steel, strengths improved, so moving into the Twentieth century, gunmakers turned their attention to imparting a vivid case coloring of steel, more for eye appeal than to improve wear resistance.

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Gary
SWCA 2515