I was looking at the Colt letter for a different forum discussion the other day and realized that my Colt New Army, specifically the US Army Model of 1901, shipped exactly 120 years ago, on October 15, 1901.
I thought that was a good enough excuse to take a few pictures and show it here.
The gun is an original Model 1901, produced in 1901. These are not that common; many of these labeled 1901 are earlier models of 1892, 1894, and 1896, which were modified to 1901 specifications by adding a lanyard swivel in the years up to 1908, and restamped. Only serials above approximately 166,000 are actual 1901 production.
The gun shipped to Benicia Arsenal in the Bay Area, the supply hub for Army operations in the Far West and the Pacific. A 300-gun shipment in 1901 means there is a chance, but no evidence, that it spent time in the Philippines.
Like most of these, it was inspected at birth by civilian sub-inspector Rinaldo A. Carr (RAC) for US Ordnance. Why the cylinder is double-stamped is not clear; possibly it failed initial inspection and was re-examined.
As the initials L.E.B. on the left frame show, this was one of 19,000+ revolvers which were sent to the Remington plant at Bridgeport to be refurbished on an Army contract in 1918, to be available as secondary guns for World War I, should that become necessary. They ended up not seeing service in the war, and most of them went to storage with the Naval reserve, from where quite a few of them made their way to Britain at the beginning of World War II as emergency assistance. Others were transferred to National Guard units and law enforcement. My gun offers no clues as to where it went after 1918, except it ended up on the West Coast in the 2000s where I acquired it.
120 Years Ago: US Army Model 1901
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