"Colt New Service" questions...

Hello,

I hope someone can help me out here... I'm not very familiar with early revolvers.

I was out the other day looking at some of the "local" gun shops and came across a fairly large Colt revolver. Has the grips with the COLT logo.
It was tagged "1917 Colt" with a price of $799. It was in pretty good shape; s/n 77977

I wrote the serial number down with the intention of checking it on the Springfield Research site... for the first time ever, I got a hit. They show
it going to the Post Office Dept. in April of 1930.

I also checked another site... proofhouse.com and came up with a manufacturing date of 1915. How can a "1917 COLT" have been made in 1915? Or is the proper name actually "Colt New Service" but was mistakenly listed as a 1917 Colt ?

I was hoping to find a military connection to this pistol... perhaps WWI;
I guess it could have been used by the military and then transferred over to
the post office dept. in 1930... (??)

I may go back and look at it again a little more closely for any inspection or ordnance stampings.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Well you are just going to have to do your home work on that puppy. Frist I would go to the Colt web site and see what they say. There is some real sharp cats over there. Your going to have to post a picture of it to get the best answers. Thats where I would start. Keep us in the loop and good luck.

Because the gun in question is not a 1917 it is a Colt New Service revolver.I got mine many years ago and it was made in 1905.After they started makeing them for the Army they called them the 1917.BTW S&W also made the 1917 revolver for a while.

The Colt New Service was also purchased by the U.S. Army as the M1909. This gun has the commercial finish and was chambered for the .45 Colt cartridge. The .45 M1909 cartridge as manufactured by Frankfor Arsenal, is similar to commercial .45 Colt cartridges, except the rim is larger in diameter. This feature was addeed to make extraction surer with the multiple star extractor of DA Colts. The rim is of such diameter that they cannot be loaded into adjacent chambers of a Single Action Colt.

Bob Wright