Original Item: Only One Available. Introduced in 1862 as the "Police Pocket Model of 1862 of Navy Caliber (.36)", this 5 shot .36 caliber percussion revolver was often purchased by serving Officers as a reserve handgun carried on the inside of their tunics.

This very nice example is in good service used condition, and has matching serial number 35212 on most parts, including the barrel, frame, grip frame, and trigger guard. The barrel wedge is marked with shortened number 5212, and the cylinder arbor pin is marked similarly, though the last number is worn away. The rear of the cylinder is worn, and we cannot see any of the serial number, which makes this a very nice "Mostly Matching" example. The condition of the cylinder matches the rest of the revolver, so we do not think it was swapped out. The serial number indicates production in 1867, according to Colt firearms records, just after the end of the Civil War, so this revolver may have seen service on the frontier during the later Indian wars.

The cylinder is quite worn, and no longer has any of the original patent markings. The frame is correctly marked COLTS PATENT, and there is also a relatively clear 36CAL stamped on the left side of the trigger guard, which we do not often see. Top of the barrel still has worn original Colt markings mostly visible:

The revolver looks to have seen a good amount of use during its service life, and now displays a peppery patina over much of the metalwork, with a bit of more advanced corrosion that has been cleaned away. The original nickel plating is completely worn away on the grip frame and trigger guard, which now display a lovely "mustard" patina. The walnut grip itself is in very good condition, showing wear from service, with a good amount of the original "piano varnish" still present. The left front toe has a crack, and may have been repaired in the past.

This patinated revolver is still in tight fully functional condition, with a strong hammer pull, and good cycling. We did not notice any of the usual issues with cylinder lock up and indexing. The bore of the revolver is still in very good condition, showing strong lands and grooves with a mostly bright finish. There is some oxidation and fouling in the grooves, as well as overall oxidation near the forcing cone, but for a Civil War era black powder percussion revolver, this is definitely well above average. The cap nipple cones are all clear, and show oxidation and fouling from powder burn, but no major damage from repeated dry firing.

Fully cleaned, a great U.S. Civil War period pocket revolver, ready to cherish and display!

Specifications:

Year of Manufacture: 1867
Caliber: .36cal
Ammunition Type: Cap and Ball
Barrel Length: 4 ½ inches
Overall Length: 9 ¾ inches
Action: Single Action

History of the Colt Pocket Percussion Pistols:

The family of Colt Pocket Percussion Revolvers evolved from the earlier commercial revolvers marketed by the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, N.J. The smaller versions of Colt's first revolvers are also called "Baby Patersons" by collectors and were produced first in .24 to .31 caliber, and later in .36 caliber, by means of rebating the frame and adding a "step" to the cylinder to increase diameter. The .31 caliber carried over into Samuel Colt's second venture in the arms trade in the form of the "Baby Dragoon"-a small revolver developed in 1847–48. The "Baby Dragoon" was in parallel development with Colt's other revolvers and, by 1850, it had evolved into the "Colt's Revolving Pocket Pistol" that collectors now name "The Pocket Model of 1849". It is a smaller brother of the more famous "Colt's Revolving Belt Pistol of Naval Caliber" introduced the same year and commonly designated by collectors as the "1851 Navy Model" (and which was a basically a larger, .36 caliber of the Pocket Model, "belt pistol" referring to a weapon sized to fit into a belt holster, as opposed to the saddle holsters generally called for by Colt's larger cavalry combat models). In 1855 Colt introduced another pocket percussion revolver, the Colt 1855 "Sidehammer", designed alongside engineer Elisha K. Root.

The Pocket Model revolvers all have a traditional "Colt-style" frame, generally with brass grip straps and trigger guard, and a case-hardened steel frame. In appearance, the frames are almost identical to the larger 1851 Navy and .44 caliber 1860 Army Models, with the exception of being smaller, and so having a proportionately larger trigger guard. Since they appear so similar to the larger weapons, without an object nearby to give them scale, the Pocket Revolvers tend to give an impression of being larger than they actually are; it is difficult to fit all four fingers onto the slender grip, even for a person with average-sized hands. Except for by noting the relative size of the trigger guard to the frame, it is easy for a casual observer to mistake a .31 caliber Model 1849 for an 1851 Navy (un-rebated frame, slab-sided webbing around a regular pivoting loading lever, octagonal barrel, unfluted cylinder); indeed, the Model 1851 Navy was basically no more than a scaled -up 1849 Pocket Model. Likewise, the larger .36 caliber Pocket Police Models are virtually identical to the 1860 Army Model, with rebated frame and stepped cylinder (to accommodate a size up from .31 to .36, instead of .36 to .44 as with the Army Model), a graceful, flowing webbing surrounding a new style "creeping" loading lever, and a round barrel. The most obvious difference is that the Pocket Police had a fluted 5-shot cylinder, while most Army Models were unfluted, and held six shots. The reason for this close similarity is that all four guns were closely related, and followed similar paths of development; the original .31 caliber Model 1849 was scaled up to create the .36 caliber 1851 Navy Model. Later, the Navy Model was increased in bore size by rebating the frame and enlarging the cylinder, and became the 1860 Army Model. With the success of this project, the .31 caliber of the 1849 Model was similarly increased to .36, using the same method, creating the Pocket Police and Pocket Navy models in 1860.

In 1860, the .36 caliber Police Pocket model was created, after lessons were learned from experimentation aimed at reducing the size of the .44 Colt Holster Pistols (i.e. large cavalry weapons), Colt took advantage of stronger mass-produced steel by rebating the frame of the Navy revolver to hold a larger-diameter 44/100-inch chambered cylinder, basically fitting the power of a large cavalry saddle holster-gun and fitting it into the .36 caliber Navy Model, a gun that could be carried in a belt holster. Previously, it wasn't thought that the smaller frame could handle the power of the .44 round, but the introduction of stronger metals made it possible. Learning the lessons from this, the Colt factory applied the same technology to the .31 caliber Model 1849 Pocket revolvers, using high-strength (for the time) steel for the frame, which allowed them to remove enough material to fit a larger-diameter .36 caliber cylinder which still had five shots (the alternative was to simply retain the original cylinder diameter, and create a 4-shot .36 caliber version. The stronger steels made this sacrifice unnecessary. Other changes including lightweight fluted cylinders, and a round barrel, to offset the added weight, and a "creeping" loading lever as used in the 1861 Army Model; the result was the "Police Pocket Model of 1862", even though production started in 1861. The Pocket Navy was a version similarly up-sized to .36 caliber, but which retained the octagonal barrel and traditional loading lever of the earlier pocket mode. Between 1862 and 1873, Colt records document production of 19,000 of the Pocket Navies and over 20,000 Pocket Police revolvers. Relative to the .31 Pocket Revolvers, the period of manufacture was short and overall numbers were further limited by a fire at the Colt Factory in 1862 and War production concerns.

NOTE: International orders of antique firearms MUST be shipped using UPS WW Services (courier). USPS Priority Mail international will not accept these. International customers should always consult their country's antique gun laws prior to ordering.