Howdy Pards,
What follows is a cut&paste that I put on another board regarding Remmies and the various finsishes available:
From the last paragraph on page 82 of 'Remington Handguns' by Karr & Karr: Quote:
The 1875s generally encountered are equipped with lanyard loops, oil finished walnuts grips and either of two types of fixed front sights. One type is the common blade front, and the other is a small iron sight a la New Model .44 percussion. Custom built guns have been found with short (5 1/2 inch) barrels, without lanyard loops, with brass or German Silver blade front sights, with engraving, or special finish or grips.
On page 58 of the Karr & Karr book is a picture of converted percussion Pocket Revolver, Plate # XXIV, heavily engraved with ivory grips and either unfinshed steel or nickle plated difficult to discern due to B&W photo) Text on page 59 states: Quote:
NEW MODEL POCKET REVOLVER A presentation coversion of this model in the Remington Family collection carried serial number "18,270". Another specimen, otherwise standard, had a bronze frame.
On page 109 of 'The Remington Historical Treasury of American Handguns' by Harold Peterson, is a picture of a "matched pair' of Remington revolvers, an 1875 and an 1890 both with 7 1/2 inch barrels with Mother of Pearl grips. Both are nickle plated and the 75 has an engraved barrel while the 90 has an engraved frame. On page 49 is a picture of a New Model Navy that is heavily engraved, with ivory grips and a two tone metal finish. The frame and barrel appear to be either nickle or bare steel while the cylinder is much darker and appears to have been blued. Again it is difficult to discern due to the B&W photo, but it is obviously two different finishes on the same gun.
Obviously there were any number of special order finishes available directly from Remington and probably from secondary sources such as custom gunsmiths. So the new Hartford reproduction with case hardened frame may well be very accurate, albiet surprizing.
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Now the above may not definately address the issue of brass framed New army Model Remingtons, but there was always a possibility!
Regarding the Colt style brass frames, I seem to recall that the ones made in the south were based on the Colt Army, but actually had a Dragoon style barrel. The early CVA brass framed "Colts" were probably the most authentic of such reproductions as they had the brass frame and Dragoon style octagon to round barrels.
