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Help with Ivory Colt Grips???
mmppres
Member Posts: 3,037 ✭✭✭
Comments
Look single action army to me. You need a quarter for scale or a tape measure.
I agree. Colt Single Action Army.
If the red hot pin, does not yield the burning hair smell, then they are Faux Ivory. Faux Ivory has been around for at least 50 years. They do look like they are Ivory Grained.
EDIT 1
The grain on the back side look like Ivory grain, but the photo's are not in good focus...or at least not good enough to tell. Those marks could also be from sanding on a wheel. The staining on the grips looks too spotchy for real Ivory. Most real Ivory stains are larger, and are more yellowing than those, and are from aging...if those are real Ivory, someone has tried to artificially age them.
Neal
FOR THE MOST PART each generation the factory grip frame got bigger and bigger THUS third generation could be made to fit both First and second gen like most items you can make them smaller but not larger to fit your pistol
LOwer locating pin holes look too high . I can check on 6Sept to compare.
IF this is so, they could be Remington.
IN the late 50s you could buy real ivory grips from DGW for $20, fully checkered with narrow border. IN 1961-2 I bought ivories for a mod 37 S&W 37 for about $35 new so it wasn't a big deal then. CUrrently, powdered ivory in an epoxy base has replaced real ivories.
Scrape some shavings from the underside and burn them.It should smell like burnt hair or fingernails.
As to stains, my SAA grips came with an attempted aging from tea stains.
FOrtunately, a light scraping using a razor cleaned them up as the staining was very superficial.
The grips are ivory. You can take that to the bank.
measurements are from base to centre hole 1 5/8. base is 2 1/4 long top flat 1 1/4 inch front flat is 1 inch. height from base to top flat is 3 1/8. thanks for the info guys
The only thing that is still puzzling,{ I can't make either one out] is the seeming lack of grain (ivory) or any porosity(bone)
Bone can be cool to the touch and can be heavy, the color seems good for either one.
I did the hot pin again an got a faint smell of burnt hair does that mean they are ivory?
The burnt hair smell is a good indicator
now my the question is,,, what type of ivory.. very possible it is elephant ivory but as a betting man I am leaning towards sperm whale ivory, looks like gold spotting in the grips, a supposed tell for that type.
I have only seen one pair of what I was told were whale grips( many years ago) and they were on a colt 1911,and had this same coloring and "spotting". not sure if the hot pin test works the same on these or not.
Before that one set I had never seen or heard of grips made out of sperm whale ivory.
I would seek out an expert worker in these materials to be sure.
In any case a nice find , great look and i would guess worth a few bucks.