Bat Masterson’s Colt Single Action Army and Holster Rig – IOTW Report

Bat Masterson’s Colt Single Action Army and Holster Rig

From Rock Island Auction—

Auction Date: May 14, 2021

Extraordinarily Historic and Incredibly Well-Documented Special Order High-Sight Colt Single Action Army Revolver and Holster Rig, Personally Ordered, Owned and Carried by American Legend, Western Lawmen and Gunfighter, Bat Masterson, with Colt Factory Letter and Additional Documentation

Price Realized: $488,750 Check it out.

h/t Brad.

30 Comments on Bat Masterson’s Colt Single Action Army and Holster Rig

  1. I’ve been in that Colt factory in Hartford on the Connecticut river back when the US firearm company was manufacturing their excellent reproductions. It still stands and the Blue Onion Dome is still on top.

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  2. I had an acquaintance who had bought every single action Colt he came across when you couldn’t give them away. That was in the 1940s and early 1950s. He bought some for a quarter is what I was told. He also bought up silver coins before the switch from silver. The guy was quite well off when I met him in Billings in about 1990 or so. I. Guess he had bought up hundreds and hundreds of single actions and made a killing on them in the late 1950s and 1960s.

    I still have a Frontier Scout that was part of a boxed set that was the 22 and a 45 Colt. I never got the 45 back after a burglary, but a lady down the street came to my front door about six months later and said a gun was in her garden and she heard I had some guns stolen. The nickel plated Frontier Scout didn’t have a mark on it and laced there from September until spring. It is a fan favorite around here, the kids love it. Maybe some day I will get another full size Colt single action, but it will be a 44 special.

    By the way I told my insurance company that it had been recovered and I would like to buy it from them and expected to pay quite a bit to get it back. They said $75 IIRC they had given me north of $1,500 for the set. It was the only thing I ever recovered.

    The set I had was a real oddball. They only put out a few of the 45 & 22 cased sets. I bought it at an estate sale for a song.

    The 45s are hard to make shoot well. You pretty much have to slug the bore and order up a mold and even then they are hard to get really fine accuracy from. The 44s I have shot we’re all really fine shooters and not particularly fussy. They can be loaded up to perform about like 357 magnum and that is better than you can get out of a 45 w/o maybe wrecking the cylinder.

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  3. I bought the Scout when I was in my 20s….

    On Friday nights a buddy and I would get drunk watching John Wayne movies and would shoot toy plastic cowboy and Indians that we stood up in my Outers bullet trap below the television. How we never managed to bag the television set or shoot a hole in the house when quick drawing and shooting down toy cowboys and indians is an enigma to me to this day. But we managed to keep all our shots in the trap.

    We would also shove old tires off my Geo Metro into the crawl space vents on the house and then go in with the little Colt and a flashlight after feral cats that got under the house. Damn lucky nobody got shot in one of those forays. Feral cats will go on the offensive when cornered and are nothing to screw around with in close quarters.

    People kept dumping them and the ones that survived to adult hood were wicked tough and meaner than rat shit. They would get under my house and rip all the insulation off the heating ducts to make their beds and would shit all over the place.

    We gave up the feral cat hunts after I got sick and ended up in the hospital with a serious respiratory infection from dust from the cat shit. After that I had an extermination take care of them. They were so strong they would rip the hardware cloth screen off and kept getting in there.

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  4. @ Illustr8r MAY 27, 2021 AT 10:37 PM

    Here’s a hint. That red dust on the gravel and dirt roads around Cody will make your disc brakes squeak like heck. Try and hit a coin op car wash and spray it off as best you can before it gets really imbedded in the pads. After I started doing that I didn’t have a problem with my brakes squeaking until I changed the pads. I don’t know what it is about that dust, but it does that.

    When I used to spend a lot of time in Billings and Livingston I used to frequent the Firearms Museum and I know first hand.

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  5. @JDHasty I’ve only been once a long time ago.There’s a someday wild west roadtrip planned to Cheyenne to visit Mr. Illustr8r’s great uncle. It’s definitely on the must see again list.

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  6. Speaking of the Wild West, guess who my Petey B forces to wear spurs with assless chaps? That’s right all you hater potaters…my unbleached elastic starfish!

  7. @jd – if the red dust is similar to “the red clay hills of Georgia” (an old poem my dad learned in school about 80 years ago), the red color comes from iron that is naturally contained in the soil. The red dust gets a little damp and oxidizes to form rust on the wheel disks and probably on the surfaces of the brake pads as well.

    My Dad’s car sits for extended periods and the disks get surface rust on them – it makes the brakes squeal pretty badly at first and to a lesser extent long after.

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  8. Huron, hope you did something fun for your birthday!

    You, Different Tim and I should meet some day. Maybe when you are celebrating your 100th birthday and the border is finally open for you to cross the river w/o having to quarantine for 14 days each way!

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  9. I absolutely love Single Action Armies. I own several, but only one Colt. I bought it about fourth years ago. Nickel played. Advertised as a collectors item at the time. Naturally I shoot the. shit out of it. I own a couple Uberti’s and Rugers. They don’t point like that Colt. I can scare the shit out of ground squirrels at 25 yards from the hip with it. It’s my favorite gun I own. I’ve thought about adding it to my permit.

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  10. I sold my lettered First gen Colt. Same configuration as Bat’s sans nickel. Made in 1889 and not considered a firearm….hah!
    Sorry I sold it.

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  11. I wouldn’t be upset to add a Colt to my collection, though not sure I want to spend a half mill (give or take) to do it. The lineage might change my mind, but I would have to go back to work, and I am enjoying retirement, while I can

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