COLT SAA RESTORATION MOVIE
Now, the gun is up to par for a 1950's or 60's Hollywood movie which from the owner's viewpoint is far better than that useless old brown Colt that Grandpa used to own. Instead of those tired old busted grips, a fancy new pair of "Lone Ranger style" plastic stag grips are installed. During the process, the original barrel and cylinder are scrapped.and to match the new parts, the rest of the gun buffed on a wheel to a bright sheen and refinished. So the unthinkable: he sends the gun to his gunsmith or even BACK TO COLT for an "upgrade" to. Then, he thinks about shooting it but original ammunition is too hard and expensive to come by. Somehow, in a moment of mindless enthusiasm, that next owner gets inspired to pull his grandfather's gun out of the closet and play quick draw.
It was as if they had just stepped off a motorcycle in the parking lot to sit on a horse in a movie set. Fast forward twenty years later.perhaps after seeing a few too many cowboy western-themed movies (you know those ones where all the cowboys looked like 50's era Hollywood gunfighters with the greased back hair, wore these ridiculous flashy gun rigs and spoke with unsalted 20th century accents. It's seen a lot of use but it's all there and original. Just imagine a nice original Colt SAA back in the 1930's that perhaps gets passed from an original owner down to a son or grandson. That said, sometimes the intent to alter a gun's appearance was considered "well-meaning" at one point in time only to become highly undesired some years later as gun collecting evolved. There are restoration artists who specialize in rebuilding SAA's who are honest and candid about their work. With some of the Single Actions we've seen over the years floating around on the market, one can only WONDER how many parts have been changed over time.OR even how many TIMES one particular part has been changed! In the age of "condition is everything", high demand for pristine examples of SAA's has pushed prices well past what a faker has to invest in the art of deception. That said, whenever something is collected so heavily for a period of several decades, lots of things can happen over time. Pick up an old Texas Gun Collector magazine from the early 1950's and you'll see photos of old timers posing with Colt SAA's.who could very well have been the original owners of these same guns at the end of the 19th century.
Some background on Colt Single Actions that you probably won't find in a book: Colt SAA's have been collected for almost as long as the gun itself has been around.
This looks like a decent example to me.but I'm not an SAA guru and what we're going to do here is give the best description we can and provide at least twenty-five om about every angle I can think of for the pistol.
COLT SAA RESTORATION SERIAL NUMBER
The serial number is in the 89,000 range. Being "early", we mean it has wooden grips instead of later hard rubber stocks and the barrel is 7-1/2" which was the original standard length for this model. This is a fairly early civilian production Colt SAA Revolver. Colt 1873 Single Action Army Frontier Six ShooterĬolt 1873 Single Action Army Frontier Six Shooter