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A lot of stuff is very subtle and a bit hard to describe even with a real Colt 1851 of the same vintage in front of me. The trigger and bolt screws are a shade too far back. The "Colts/Patent" is stamped unevenly and is too far back. The barrel marking is uneven, and a couple of the letters are wrong. The cylinder serial number is a big boo-boo; those san-serif numbers never were put on in Hartford or London, and the whole legend is too far back.
The back strap is the wrong shape, as is the trigger guard. The hammer knurling is wrong, Colt never did anything like that. Now Colt did sometimes have the legends hand engraved when a gun was to be fully factory engraved, but that engraving never came out of the Colt factory or from a Colt contractor. It looks more like Khyber Pass than Connecticut.
Could the gun be a modern repro faked up to look old? Maybe, but I can't imagine any repro with that kind of front sight; it is just too "different."
One thing is certain in my mind. That gun is no "brevete" (licensed copy) or even an unauthorized copy by a foreign or U.S. gun maker. If it is not a modern reprto, it is a counterfeit, a fake made for no other purpose than to be sold as a genuine Colt. Someone, probably working from an original, did a meticulous job of copying not just the gun but the markings as well. The only jarring note is the cylinder serial number; that font simply is not nineteenth century. Maybe it was put on much later when someone thought the cylinder should have a number.
All in all, a real puzzle. I can't even discount the Confederate story. If the gun is old, it could have been carried in the Civil War.
If I can ask Sagetown to indulge me with one more photo, of the underside of the trigger guard, frame and barrel, showing the three serial numbers. Thanks a lot.
Jim
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