Description
Manufactured in 1913, this is an exceptional condition revolver which easily retains 85%+/- original finish overall. Action and markings are as crisp as when it left the factory. Chambered in the extremely fast .32-20 Winchester round, this was one of the first “Magnum” type revolvers made. Original Colt grips (right side has faded a bit from being in a gun case 75 years). If you ever wanted a beautiful condition Colt SAA with factory documented history, look no more. Included with the revolver is the Colt Factory letter certifying it was shipped (only one gun) to Browning Arms Company in 1913. The original collector who owned this gun said the weapon was given to his grandfather in Salt Lake City, Utah, by John M. Browning as a gift. The personal relationship between the two is not known.
C&R or FFL license required for sale and transfer, no exceptions.
The business known as the Browning Arms Company was officially organized in Ogden, Utah, under that name in 1927, a year after its most famous namesake, John Moses Browning, died. In actuality, the Browning organization had been around as early as Jonathan Browning’s arrival in Utah and the establishment of his gun shop in Ogden in 1852. With the death of Jonathan, his son John Moses Browning became the head of the family’s gunsmithing business, and with his brothers – Matthew, Jonathan Edmund, Thomas Samuel, William, and George – established in 1872 the Browning Brothers Company with its shop and retail store in Ogden.
John Moses Browning has been called “the greatest firearms inventor the world has ever known.” His first patent was granted on 7 October 1879. He is credited with 128 gun patents, and some fifty million sports and military weapons were manufactured from those patents during the forty-seven years he was an active inventor. Among his most famous guns produced were the 45-caliber pistol; the 1895 Colt Peacemaker machine gun; the Browning automatic rifle; a variety of 30- and 50-caliber machine guns used in World War II; and the Browning Automatic-5 shotgun first made in 1902 and still produced today.
Browning Brothers manufactured guns in Ogden and produced 600 Browning single-shot rifles before the company turned over the patent to the Winchester Arms Company. From that time on, the company contracted with other arms manufacturing companies to produce its weapons. These companies included, in addition to Winchester Arms, the Colt Arms Manufacturing Company, the Fabrique Nationale of Belgium, the Remington Arms Company, and Savage Arms Company. All used numerous Browning patents, and it is not generally known that many of the guns produced by these companies were invented by John Browning.
