1851 Navy Colt

[Miker91]

I'm close to buying one of these. Serial number is 88789. Any reasonable way to determine date of manufacture ? Thanks in advance for any help. Thank you. I'll post pictures when I have it.

 

[Dave D]

I'm close to buying one of these. Serial number is 88789. Any reasonable way to determine date of manufacture ? Thanks in advance for any help. Thank you. I'll post pictures when I have it.

Try the serial number lookup at Colt Manufacturing : https://www.colt.com/serial-lookup

It returns 23 matches but, only one 1851 Navy Colt - manufacture date 1858.

 

[Miker91]

Thank you very much. I'll keep that link.

 

[ConfederateCanuck]

I use this serial # database for Colts. Find your gun on left margin, select it, and you get serial numbers by year. Click on this link:

Serial Number Data

The number you see, for a given year, is the serial number that was manufactured at the beginning of that year. You bracket your serial number within two consecutive years. So, in your case, S/N 88,789 lies between 1858 (85,000) and 1859 (90,000). Your gun was made late in 1858 (likely late August - early September assuming fairly even monthly production rates, a fairly reasonable assumption before the war began). During the war, rates of production changed significantly within some years as contracts were obtained and production capacity was increased to deliver on those contracts.

 

[Miker91]

Another great link to save. Thanks. Just sitting here waiting for my beautiful 1851 to arrive.

 

[Jeff in Ohio]

I use this serial # database for Colts. Find your gun on left margin, select it, and you get serial numbers by year. Click on this link:

Serial Number Data

The number you see, for a given year, is the serial number that was manufactured at the beginning of that year. You bracket your serial number within two consecutive years. So, in your case, S/N 88,789 lies between 1858 (85,000) and 1859 (90,000). Your gun was made late in 1858 (likely late August - early September assuming fairly even monthly production rates, a fairly reasonable assumption before the war began). During the war, rates of production changed significantly within some years as contracts were obtained and production capacity was increased to deliver on those contracts.

yes, this is the good one - much better to use and more accurate than the Colt website.

 

[ConfederateCanuck]

Another great link to save. Thanks. Just sitting here waiting for my beautiful 1851 to arrive.

The bracketing approach worked very well for me when I got my very first Colt, an 1860 Army. The estimated date of manufacture I got from "bracketing) was very close to the actual date of manufacture, which I obtained from Charles Pate, author of that most excellent book on the 1860 Army (he had records on my gun, which he had inspected in Baltimore in 2008). Somehow, that gun made its way up to Canada where I saw it and bought it in 2018.

 

[Story]

I'm close to buying one of these. Serial number is 88789. Any reasonable way to determine date of manufacture ? Thanks in advance for any help. Thank you. I'll post pictures when I have it.

Welcome aboard. Should you decide to get it, Imgur.com is a good place to host pics for free (hint hint).