This pistol was donated to the State Historical Society of Colorado in 1911 and later deaccessioned. It comes with copies of the museum’s files documenting its donation by an Annie R. Parker who recorded its use by Albert Parker (presumed to be her husband by a later collector, but possibly her father,) who used it while in the “government freighter service in the 1860s,” likely indicating a freight company with government contracts for hauling supplies along the Sante Fe Trail in that early period.

The pistol is a 7-1/2” octagonal barrel, six-shot, .36 caliber, Metropolitan Navy Model Revolver (Flayderman 7A-063) in very good condition. These were purchased and used by officers and civilians and are regarded a secondary martial percussion revolvers. A very close copy of the Colt 1851 Navy, production of these pistols is attributed to Orison Blunt of New York City in an effort to take advantage of the February 1864 Colt factory fire, with the manufacture then handed off to the Metropolitan Arms Co. Flayderman estimates production as 6,063 from 1864 to 1866 with the serial numbers jumped by 1100 after pistol number 63 to give an appearance early on of popularity, demand, sales, and a serious production run. This one is serial number 3219, about a third of the way into the actual production run, with the numbers all matching.

The pistol has smooth metal, sharp markings overall, very good cylinder scene, good fit and nice color to the grips, excellent mechanics, and good bore. The barrel shows as gray with darker gray age stains and a thin, superficial brown with some wear of the edges to lighter color. The address on the top flat is crisp and reads “< METROPOLITAN ARMS Co. NEW-YORK > Serial numbers are sharp as well. The loading lever shows some thin blue from case coloring on the hinge and there is some faint, thin blue on the rear of the barrel assembly around the wedge, near the cylinder. Some screws show blue. The cylinder is largely gray with some darker gray stains and superficial brown like the barrel. The frame shows some very faint, thin bluish-gray tones from case color, and there is some thin bluish-gray color in the capping cutout. The nipples are good, not battered.

The cylinder scene is quite good. Flayderman remarks the pistol is so close a copy of the Colt Navy it can be hard telling them apart. As on the Colt, the cylinder scene is a naval engagement and is captioned along the forward edge of the cylinder, but the scene is more recent and patriotic than Colt’s Texan-Mexican Navy engagement, showing steam and sail warships, one clearly flying a U.S flag, with some shore fortifications, captioned, “NEW ORLEANS APRIL 1862,” along with “W.L. ORMSBY SC.” The scene celebrates the passage of Forts Jackson and St. Phillip by Farragut and subsequent surrender of New Orleans on April 25. “SC” abbreviates “sculpsit,” identifying Waterman Lily Ormsby as the engraver. One of America’s foremost engravers, he will be recognized for his work in banknote engraving, but also for his cylinder scenes for Colt, so it must have been with some satisfaction that the Metropolitan’s makers were able to copy Colt in that way as well.

The grips have a pleasing reddish-brown tone and lots of the original varnish showing a good fit and just minor handling marks, though with a small rectangular blemish to the varnish at the upper right, likely from a removed sticker. The grips also show an India ink museum inventory number down the forward left of the grip near the grip strap (H-B-24.11)  and another ink number (OH 75) on the grip strap itself. The brass overall has a pleasing, mellow tone.

The buttstrap shows the name “John” lightly scratched into it but, interestingly, comes with some very convincing paperwork on the provenance identifying the original owner as one Albert Parker, who worked in the “gov’t freighter service, 1860’s.” This comes from the original museum information sheet typed up when the pistol was donated on 7/25/1911 and carries the serial number of the pistol, the first India ink number cited above as the catalog number and the second as the accession number, with the donor named as Annie R. Parker. A second letter from a Florida collector to dealer Norm Flayderman indicates he had obtained it from the State Historical Society of Colorado and identifies Anne Parker, the donor, as Albert Parker’s wife.

The connection with freight hauling and early Colorado puts this pistol right in the middle of the post Civil War western expansion of the U.S. – basically continuing the trend set in motion by the Mexican War. A history of domestic trade in the U.S. notes after the Mexican war from 1847 to 1859 the average value of merchandise carried in wagons to New Mexico was a little over one million dollars and that in 1860 it had increased to more than three million, with the chief shipping points Independence and Kansas City, MO, with transportation supplied by “regular freighters” conducting “the white topped prairie schooners across the broad expanse of unsettled country between the Missouri River and the mountains,” and that “when gold was discovered in Colorado in 1859 there was an immediate rush of settlers to that territory, which was accompanied by the rise of a heavy trade in tools and provisions.” Needless to say, collectors with an interest in the Old West and classic westerns will immediately think of classics like “The Santa Fe Trail” and other such productions. We have not been able to further identify Albert Parker, but there is considerable information to go on and it looks like there is potential for some pretty colorful western history to be developed.

A very good example of a Civil War era percussion revolver that would fit in a display of similar percussion arms, Colts for comparison, or one devoted to Colt and his rivals in the early American west.  [sr][ph:L]

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